Things That Go Bump In The Night
by xoloveJBox
Summary: Sisfic. Don't like? Don't read : If you want to, this is the story of Elena Winchester; teen hunter, following her big brothers in their quest for answers... Ok, I completely suck at summaries, but please give it a read! It might not be so bad, I promise haha Follows the show from Se01ep01 with my own character and the odd original storyline. Please R R!
1. Chapter 1

**_A/N: Ok, so this is my first Supernatural fic, please bear with me lol. Like I said, this is basically the show as it is, with a little sister character, and one or two original storylines slipped in here and there. :) _**

**_Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural. I wish I did, but I don't so that sucks for me lol This chapter includes dialogue taken from Pilot, purely for contextual purposes :)_**

**_I can't promise that updates on this story will be regular or particularly fast, but I promise that I'm working on it as much as possible. I've literally been working on this chapter alone for almost a week, and that's before I've gone back to college after the summer, which was today, so that's a pain. Also, I haven't completely decided whether or not I want to continue with this story. I might do it for myself, but I'm only going to post on here if people are interested, so please please please let me know if you are, because then I'll at least make an effort to get chapters up fairly swiftly. _**

**_I've got a couple of stories on here, and I absolutely love getting reviews. They help me to know what people are thinking, what they like/dislike, just general comments. I'm a firm believer that feedback helps me improve my writing, so if there's anything, even criticisms, I'm wide open to them. If you don't want to leave a review, PM me instead! I really don't mind! I know some people get really defensive and protective over their writing and don't like it when people point out flaws, but I'm definitely not one of them. If you see something wrong, or you think something in particular was crap, tell me so! I'll always try and reply to every single review/message etc, and I'll always do my best to take away what is said and act on it, so yeah, don't be worried about upsetting me because I'd much rather people let me know then stop reading if they enjoy it._**

**_P.S; My character's name is Elena, but she mostly goes by Lena. If I write 'Le' it's supposed to sound like 'Lay' but I didn't know how to write it like that with the spelling of Elena. :)_**

**_So yeah, let me know ahah. Rant over, I'm going to let you actually read the chapter now lol._**

**_Lot of virtual love,_**

**_xoloveJBox_**

* * *

**Chapter One- Pilot- part 1**

"Hey, you want breakfast?" Dean asked as Sam searched through his brother's box of cassette tapes.  
"No thanks," Sam replied, momentarily glancing up and seeing the bag in Dean's hand "So how'd you pay for that stuff?" he asked "You and Dad still running credit card scams?"  
"Yeah, well," Dean shrugged nonchalantly "Hunting aint exactly a pro-ball career." Dean smirked mischievously "Besides, all we do is apply. It's not our fault they send us the cards."  
"Yeah," Sam replied, his eyebrows raised into his dark hair "and what names did you write on the application this time?"  
"Uh..." Dean sighed as he got back behind the wheel, having to pick through the many names they had used over the years "Bert Aframian, and his son, Hector. Scored two cards out of the deal."  
"Sounds about right." Sam scoffed before turning back to the box in his lap "I swear man; you've gotta update your cassette tape collection." He whined.  
"Why?" Dean questioned with a frown.  
"Well, for one; they're cassette tapes" Sam argued, dipping his hand into the box "and two; Black Sabbath? Motor-head? Metallica? It's the greatest hits of mullet rock."  
Dean grabbed one and defiantly shoved it into the player "House rules Sammy; driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole."  
"You know," Sam sighed, ignoring the comment "'Sammy' is a chubby twelve year old. It's Sam, ok?"  
Dean leaned forward and cranked up the volume "I'm sorry, I can't hear you" he yelled as they pulled out of the gas station "The music's too loud."  
"Where are we going anyway?" Sam called over the thumping of the stereo.  
"Portland." Dean replied simply.  
"What's in Portland?" Sam asked, confusion etched into his features.  
"Probably the scariest thing we've ever faced." Dean answered dramatically. Sam looked concerned for a minute, before raising his eyebrows expectantly, waiting for an answer.  
Dean looked Sam straight in the eyes "Elena."

Elena Winchester was rinsing the shampoo from her hair, singing along to herself, when someone started to bang on the bathroom door.  
"Lena!" her best friend Taylor called "You have a text message."  
"What's it say?" Lena replied, squeezing a dollop of conditioner into her palm.  
"It says 'We need to talk. Be there soon. Love your big brother Dean and big sister Sam.'" Taylor read before adding "Dude, I didn't know you had a sister."  
"I don't." Lena answered, unable to stop the grin that was spreading over her face "It's just Dean being an ass."  
Elena quickly finished her shower and dressed, feeling suddenly more cheerful than she could remember feeling for a while. She enjoyed her school, had four incredible best friends, but she missed her brothers and her father and, while she hated to admit it, she kind of missed hunting too.  
She had spent her life being trained like a warrior, to hunt and fight and destroy, alongside her family, so being dropped off, alone, at a boarding school at the age of thirteen had been a major culture shock. One that she had taken a long time to get over.  
At first, Elena had taken every precaution she could think of; she wore countless charms, salted every window, and drew devil's traps in her walk-in closet, above the shower, under the windows and doors, covered in rugs. She had even slept with a bottle of holy water next to her bed, with a silver knife under her pillow and an iron crowbar beneath the mattress. Her room-mate Taylor, a petite blonde with pretty blue eyes, a huge attitude and an even bigger mouth, had not objected to Elena's seemingly crazy actions, and Elena had appreciated it. It took Elena a good few weeks to realise that the safety measures she was taking to secure herself meant that she was breaking one of her father's cardinal rules: whatever you do, don't stand out. Blend in wherever possible. So, slowly, and not without anxiety, Elena had made her defences more and more discreet until she'd eventually just taken them away. Now, three and a half years later, only the charms, dangling around her wrist, the silver knife and the holy water remained.  
Lena itched in her uniform. She'd always hated it, and she couldn't understand why her father had chosen to send her to of the few schools where she couldn't wear her own clothes. All that day, Lena was impatient and distracted in class, desperately eager to hear the roar of the impala on campus. She checked her phone countless times during the day, hoping for a better ETA than 'soon'. To Dean, 'soon' could mean anything between five minutes and five days. She tried not to be disappointed when she climbed into bed with no sign of Sam and Dean.  
"I thought your brothers were coming today?" Taylor asked as she clambered into her own bed.  
"Me too Tay." Elena replied dejectedly, once again checking her cell.  
"Don't forget," Taylor continued cheerfully, hoping that a change in topic would stop her best friend from looking so miserable. "It's Anna and Brooke's birthday next week."  
Anna and Brooke were twins who, along with a small, mousy girl named Meredith, lived in the dorm next to Taylor and Elena's, and they made up the other three of Elena's four best friends.  
"I know; I haven't forgotten." Elena promised, seeing straight through Taylor's plan to distract her.  
"And," Taylor continued with a wry grin "It's your turn to get the coffee in the morning."  
Lena groaned loudly. She hated the coffee run. It meant getting up early.  
"Didn't I already take my turn?" she asked hopefully.  
Taylor scoffed "Yeah, last Friday. Don't try and wheedle your way out Elena Mary Winchester."  
"But I don't even like coffee!" Elena whined, mirroring the same conversation they had every Thursday night.  
"Tough." Taylor replied, deadpan. "It'll be Friday, so it's your turn. End of story."  
"Fine." Elena grumbled, feigning a pout. "I don't like you."  
"I don't like you either." Taylor retorted with a soft tinkering for a laugh as she reached over to swift off the lamp "Now goodnight best friend."  
"Goodnight."

Elena woke up abruptly the next morning, after receiving a kick from Taylor.  
"Get up," She grunted; still half asleep herself "We need caffeine."  
Without discernible words, Lena slid out of bed, blindly yanked clean uniform out of her closet and threw them on, barely noticing Meredith sitting cross-legged on the floor with chemistry homework spread out in front of her, and Anna and Brooke perched on the end of Taylor's bed, Anna twisting Brooke's thick auburn curls into a braid. Elena crossed into the bathroom, splashed cold water on her face and began to brush her teeth.  
"Dude, hurry up. We're barely conscious here." Taylor yelled.  
"Alright," Elena snapped through a mouthful of spearmint foam "I'm going."  
She quickly ran a brush through her long, dark brown waves of hair. She laughed as she fell through the door, trying to shove shoes on her feet, as her friends all but pushed her out.  
It was still early, and very few people were around. She had absent-mindedly grabbed her phone on the way out, and she checked it again. Nothing. She sighed irritably and continued on her way to the coffee vendor that one of the five girls frequented every weekday morning.  
"Hey Princess!" A voice behind her suddenly called, and Lena immediately halted, a huge grin spreading across her cheeks. She knew that voice. She would have been able to pick it out anywhere, anytime. Lena turned and her eyes fell straight to her brothers, leaning casually against the impala, smiling broadly at her. Without really thinking about it, Lena took off a run. She launched herself at Dean first, and he caught her in a bear hug, lifting her momentarily from the ground. When her feet touched the floor again, she did the same to Sam, realising that it was the first time she had seen him for just over two years. The thought made Lena hold onto him tighter for a few more seconds. She couldn't believe how much she had missed her brothers, and now, seemingly out of the blue, they were in front of her again.  
"I thought you guys were coming yesterday." She told them when she finally let go of Sam.  
"Yeah, well," Dean scoffed "I think his big fancy college has spoilt Sammy, and now he's decided that my car isn't good enough to sleep in, so we had to stop."  
Lena gave them both a punch in the arm "And you couldn't have dropped me a text or something?" She accused as her brothers rubbed their arms, pouting slightly. Lena checked the time and saw that she had already been gone for ten minutes. She knew that she'd be in trouble with Taylor if she wasn't quicker, but she struggled to care. She sighed, knowing that it was only fair for her to get the coffee. It was her turn, after all. However, as she looked around, about to ask if Sam and Dean wanted coffee too, she spotted her friends walking past, gawking at them and giggling to themselves.  
"I'm going right now!" She yelled to them, causing Sam and Dean to cast each other confused glances.  
"Don't worry about it." Taylor called in a sickly sweet tone. Lena raised her eyebrows before sighing and rolling her eyes.  
"Wait here." She muttered to her brothers before stalking off towards her friends.  
"Alright, what's going on?" Lena demanded, arms folded firmly across her chest.  
"What do you mean?" Tay asked, feigning ignorance.  
"You're being nice."  
"I'm always nice."  
"No you're not." Lena shot back "Not this early in the morning, so spit it out."  
A slight, mischievous smile played over Taylor's lips "You didn't tell us they were so hot."  
Lena groaned "Guys, come on. They're my brothers."  
"Even better," Anna started, and her sister added "Now you can introduce us."  
"Are you guys serious?" Lena whined.  
"Deadly," Taylor grinned, grabbing Lena's hand and dragging her along "Let's go."  
"Sam, Dean," Lena grumbled when they reached the car "Meet my incredibly irritating best friends; Taylor, Meredith, Anna and Brooke."  
Dean nodded "Ladies."  
"Ok," Elena started, turning back to her brothers "You said we needed to talk. What about?"  
Dean's eyes flickered to the four other girls before finally calculating the best answer that would get Lena's attention, but no one else's. "Dad."  
Lena felt herself stiffen, and she didn't let her eyes wander from her brothers as she spoke to her friends. "Guys, I'll meet you all back at the room, ok?"  
The other girls were a little bit surprised, but they agreed and quickly left, wandering to themselves what was going on. Lena waited until they were completely gone before speaking.  
"What about Dad?" She asked, her tone and mood instantly icy to keep herself distant.  
"He's hunting, and I haven't heard from him for a few days." Dean explained in a sombre tone.  
"Is that it?" Lena asked incredulously, feeling herself physically relax. "Dean, this is dad we're talking about. He does this all the time."  
"Not like this Le. He's never gone this long without at least calling me." Dean explained.  
"So he's busy." Lena suggested with a shrug "He'll stumble back when he's done."  
"I don't think so Elena, not this time."  
"Well, what are we supposed to do?" Lena asked, failing to see the bigger picture.  
"We need to go and find him." Dean replied, as if the answer should have been obvious. Lena glanced across at Sam, looking for something that might give her a little more insight into what they should do. "Do you think we should go and find him?" She asked him seriously.  
"I think we need to at least find out what he was hunting, to see if there's even a chance of it being something Dad couldn't handle on his own."  
"Huh." Lena huffed, clearly unimpressed by Sam's response.  
"What?" Sam asked, Lena's reaction not going unnoticed.  
"Nothing," Lena told him, deadpan "it's just, you've never exactly been gung ho for helping Dad on his hunts."  
"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam questioned, seeing the scowl on Lena's face.  
"It means you left Sammy. You made your choice, and while none of us were happy about it, we left you alone. And now, all of a sudden, you're raring to go? I'm just saying, it doesn't make sense."  
"You didn't exactly encourage me to stay." Sam shot back, sending Lena back on the defensive.  
"Sam, I was twelve years old. How exactly was I supposed to make you stay?" Lena demanded, hearing her voice getting louder as her anger increased. Leave it to Sam to put a downer on their reunion, she though bitter.  
"You could have asked." Sam told her simply, leaving all three of them shocked at the realisation of the simplicity of what he had said.  
"W-what?" Lena stuttered, tripping over the word, sure that she had heard wrongly.  
"If you'd have asked me, Elena, I might have stayed." Sam told her quietly, regretting the confession as soon as it left his lips.  
"Don't you dare" Lena warned darkly "Don't you dare put that on me Sam. I cried myself to sleep listening to that argument, and when I woke up, you were gone! You didn't even say goodbye to me!" Elena yelled, frustrated and upset. She took a step forward, sizing herself up to Sam, though she knew there was no way she could ever compete with him. He was a good few inches taller, and she would never catch up. But that didn't stop her trying. Dean felt like he could have cut the atmosphere with a knife, and while he knew there was no way Sam would ever hit Elena, he couldn't be so sure about Lena not throwing a few punches at Sam.  
"Alright ladies," he boomed, stepping between them "Simmer down a little, huh?"  
Before any of them had a chance to say anything else, a voice behind them grabbed their attentions, forcing an interruption to Lena and Sam's stare-down with each other.  
"Lena, are you alright?" the voice asked, and when Dean looked, he saw a tall, wiry boy, around Lena's age, with a mass of light brown spikes for hair and bright eyes that seemed to be a mixture of blue and green. Neither Sam nor Dean recognised him, but when Lena saw him, she physically relaxed and stepped away from Sam.  
"Everything's fine Jake." She promised, giving the boy a name.  
"Yeah Jake," Dean repeated stiffly "Everything's fine."  
Lena shot her brother a glare before turning back to Jake, who had taken another protective step towards her, one that had not gone unnoticed by Sam and Dean, while Jake shot them wary glances.  
"Jake, these are my brothers." She explained, suffocating in the testosterone in the air. Jake gave a small nod, and Sam and Dean just glared. Elena quickly shooed her friend off to class, warning that he would be late.  
"Aren't you worried about being late?" Sam asked, his head not quite out of school mode yet.  
"Nah," Elena shrugged "I don't really like class. And, I have a free period now anyway."  
"Nice uniform by the way Le." Dean smirked, glancing down at her matching navy blue blazer and knee length skirt, and the light blue blouse that made up her uniform. Her knobbly knees were covered with nude tights, and her feet were clad in simple black pumps.

"Shut up." She shot back "So, geniuses, what do you suggest we do now?" Lena asked seriously, her tone and her gaze dropping slightly.

"Honestly," Dean sighed, "I think we should all stick together until this is sorted out."

"So you want me to come with you?" she asked, though she already knew the answer.

Dean nodded, almost solemnly. Lena rubbed her face with her hand and sighed. "Fine." She muttered.

Sam and Dean glanced at each other. All three of them were surprised that there had not been more of a fight from Lena. She saw their expressions and smiled wearily at them "it's Dad." She offered simply as they only explanation.

"Dean, it could take weeks to get her out of school. This isn't going to work." Sam argued.

Lena grinned "Not exactly. When Dad bought me here, he set up this thing where a select group of people can switch me over to a home school programme in no more than ten minutes."

Sam shot her a quizzical, sceptical glance.

"I'm not sure how it works," Lena finished "but it must be our lucky day because you two knuckle heads are on that list of people who can do it."

Wordlessly, with a solid plan to work to, the three set off towards the Dean's office to make the arrangements. The inside of the school was modern and sophisticated, and it was clear that a lot of time, effort and money went into keeping it looking immaculate. As they passed the library, it almost looked like it had been removed from an older, likely medieval castle and attached to the school. The ceiling was high and ornate, and the walls were almost filled from top to bottom with books. It made Sam envious that he had not been sent to the school himself when he had been Lena's age.

Dean Roger's office was empty when they arrived, so the three Winchesters settled into the seats outside the door to wait.

"Hey Lena," Sam said after a minute of contemplative silence "Who else is on that list of people who can take you out of school?"

Lena thought for a second "Well, like I said; you two, Dad obviously, Pastor Jim, Caleb and Bobby."

"But what if none of us can get to you?" Dean questioned.

"You know, I asked Dad that question too." Lena commented.

"What did he say?"

"He said that if none of the six of you could come, then it's time to forget school and run like hell, because it means something bad is going on."

Left with a slightly solemn thought, they were all relieved when a tall, slender woman with a kind face rounded the corner and spotted them.

"Ah Miss Winchester, just the student I was hoping _not _to see today." The woman joked with a warm smile "Professor Wood tells me you were late for biology again yesterday."

"Yes, but Dean Rogers, if I started turning up on time to class, you'd expect it every day." Lena replied with a mischievous grin.

"And wouldn't that be something. Your brothers?" Dean Rogers added dryly before turning to Sam and Dean with an outstretched hand. Lena nodded, a slightly pleased grin on her cheeks. "Elena is an exceptional student, very bright with a good head on her shoulders."

"And that's _without _turning up to class on time." Elena muttered.

"So just think what you could do if you did. Now, to what do I owe this impromptu visit?"

"It's the day you've been waiting for since I got here Dean Rogers." Lena exclaimed happily "I've got to split."  
The dean narrowed her eyes slightly "Can I ask why?"

"I thought you promised my father no questions?" Lena queried, matching the older woman's almost challenging tone.

Dean Rogers shrugged, feigning nonchalance "Fair enough. If one of you gentlemen would like to follow me, we can sort out the necessary paperwork, and you can be on your way."

Dean Rogers stepped inside her office, leaving the three of them alone again.

"What name should I use?" Dean whispered nervously.

"Concentrate now, this one's complicated;" Lena replied seriously in a hushed tone. Dean leaned closer, eager to make sure he got it right when Lena finally told him "Dean Winchester."

Sam chuckled and Dean muttered something that sounded like 'Smart-ass' under his breath and before following after the Dean. Sam and Lena sat for a few long seconds in a semi-uncomfortable silence before Lena finally decided to swallow her pride and break it.

"Look, Sammy," she started, fidgeting in her seat "What I said outside, about you not caring about Dad..."

Sam furrowed his eyebrows "You didn't say that I don't care about Dad."

"That's what I was thinking. It's what I meant." Lena admitted quietly, looking down at her feet. "I'm sorry, alright? I was...well, I don't know what I was, but it was unfair of me to say those things to you."

"It's alright, short-stuff." Sam told her, giving her a playful nudge before turning serious again. "I never even realised that I didn't say goodbye to you."

"Whaddya say we just call it even then, huh?" Elena suggested with a hopeful glance.

"Deal." Sam answered. Lena leant her head on Sam's shoulder.  
"I missed you." She told him honestly, but Dean emerged again before Sam had chance to reply.

"Elena, I'll have your books ready for you by the time you're packed." Dean Rogers told her firmly. She had clearly tried to squeeze information out of Dean, but from the triumphant smirk on her brother's face, Lena guessed that she hadn't been successful.

The three left quickly and made their way across campus to Lena's dorm. Lena felt decidedly happier now that she had cleared the air with Sam, and she had to admit that she was growing kind of excited to be going out on a hunt again.

When they reached Lena's dorm, she went to push it straight open, but quickly realised that it was locked.

"Huh," she mumbled "Tay must be next door." She pulled out her key and unlocked the door, letting them all inside.

"Nice pad, young one." Dean said, letting out an impressed whistle. "I'm a little disappointed though."

Lena raised an eyebrow, knowing what he meant. She crossed over to her bed "Holy water." She said, tossing him the bottle before reaching beneath the pillow and mattress. "Silver and iron. There are four devil's traps; one by the window, one by the door, and one inside the shower and the closet."

"Well, I take it back" Dean chuckled "Someone's a bit of an anxious Anne, huh?"

She ignored the comment and sighed "Right, if I'm not back in five minutes, leave without me, because this is going to be ugly."

Lena left the room, leaving Dean and Sam to entertain themselves.

"You know what I don't get?" Sam said to Dean when they were alone "Why is it that Dad had a major bitch fit at me when, at the age of eighteen, I left for college, but then, at the age of thirteen, he _sends_ Elena away."

"You don't get it, do you?" Dean asked, clearly amused by his brother's apparent ignorance, mid-way through fiddling with some of Elena's things. "You left to forget. You wanted to get away from the life we lead, and that included all the precautions that keep us safe. Elena, on the other hand, clearly never let her guard down."  
Sam opened his mouth to argue, but the loud yelling that erupted from the room next door stopped him. A moment later, Lena crashed through the door, followed by a hoard of seriously angered teenage girls.

"I told you right from the start that there was a chance this was going to happen Taylor. There's nothing I can do about it." Lena shot over her shoulder as she stalked over to her bed, leaning down and dragging out a duffel bag from underneath.

"You could stay." Taylor retorted sharply.

"I _can't_" Lena replied, stepping into her closet and started to go through her clothes, selecting the most convenient items there. Mostly jeans and t-shirts. Over the few years she had been at the school, Lena had slowly acquired a number of nicer items of clothing, things that she saved for parties mostly. She had been reluctant to buy them at first, and now she knew why. She hated that she would have to leave so much behind.

"Where are you even going?" Taylor demanded. Lena was about to yell an angry response about it not mattering where she was going, but she realised that she didn't even know. She slowly turned to Sam and Dean, who had remained in their original spots, too scared to move into the girl's line of fire.

"Where _are _we going?" She asked expectantly. The boys were silent for a minute. Sam looked down at the floor, slightly uncomfortable. Dean thought for a minute before deciding that it wouldn't matter if a few teens knew where they were headed. There was no possible way they could guess what they were doing anyway.

"California." He answered cheerfully, hoping to slash some of the tension.

"California? California!" Taylor exclaimed, throwing her hand in the air. "That's great. You're going on a vacation!"

"I'm not going for a freakin' vacation." Lena hissed venomously "It's complicated, ok? I don't even understand it myself, and you're not exactly making it easy for me."

"Are you coming back?" One of the twins whispered, her tone soft and sad, sharply contrasted with the angered voices of Lena and Taylor.

"I don't know." Lena replied, almost as quietly, and she knew it was as close to honest as she could get with her friends. The realisation seemed to really hit the five girls, and as if on cue, all ten eyes seemed to well up at the same time.

Great, Dean thought, synchronised crying.

However, before any tears started to flow, a knock on the door seemed to force the girls to reign themselves in. Meredith quickly pushed open the door, revealing Jake, looking confused with an armful of books.

"Dean Rogers got me out of class and asked me to bring these to you." He explained awkwardly. "What's going on?"

"Minor family drama," Lena shrugged dismissively "I've got to leave."

Lena shut off while Jake ranted. Taylor joined in again. Lena didn't hear a word. She finished shoving her simplest clothes into the bag, as well as her glasses, her spare contact lenses, her items from the bathroom, her knife and crowbar, a few books, her iPod and phone and the locked metal tin that held the money she had been saving for years. Wordlessly, she grabbed a spare pair of jeans and t-shirt and went into the bathroom to change out of her uniform. She thought about leaving it behind, knowing she wouldn't need it anymore, but without really knowing why, she changed her mind and tossed it in the bag too. She grabbed her leather jacket from the closet, a slightly more feminine version of Dean's jacket with a hood.

"Help yourself ladies," she announced as she stepped out again, aware of the fact that she had interrupted Taylor and Jake. "Donate what you don't want. Jake, I'd say you could look too, but I don't think I have anything in your colour."

The room fell silent. Everyone had realised that there was nothing else for Lena to do now but leave. Lena slipped into her jacket, threw the duffel onto her shoulder, and bundled the books from the bed, where Jake had dumped them when he'd begun shouting. Sam and Dean each took them from her, mostly because neither of them liked feeling like they weren't doing anything, and also so that she could walk unhindered with her friends to the car. Lena was grateful that her brothers had decided to walk a little way ahead of her as they made their way across campus. Taylor and Jake had each hooked their fingers around Lena's, and the other three girls walked close to them. Dean could hear Lena laughing at some unheard comment as he put the books into the trunk. He watched as Sam slowly wondered over, took Lena's bag put that into the trunk too. They each climbed into the car, waiting for Lena to join them. With the windows closed, they couldn't hear what was being said, but they could see Elena's watery smile as she hugged each of her friends, lingering a little longer when she got to Taylor. The boys stiffened when they saw Jake press a kiss on Lena's cheek, but straight afterwards, Lena scurried over to the impala and climbed in, waving as Dean pulled away.

"Well, that was easier than I thought." She murmured after a few minutes of sniffling in the back seat. She wiped away silent tears with her sleeve and leaned forward in her seat. "So, what's the plan?"

"Well," Dean started "We head to Jericho, find out what it is Dad was after and if he got it, see where he went, and just follow the trail until we find Dad."

"And all before Monday." Sam muttered, sounding sceptical.

"Why, what's Monday?" Lena asked, looking between her brothers, noting the irritated glance Dean was shooting Sam.

"I have a law school interview, with the chance of a full ride." Sam explained, choosing to ignore Dean.

"Nice job Samson." Lena replied, putting out her hand for a high-five. Sam grinned and reciprocated it. "How's your girlfriend, err, what's her name?"

"Jessica." Sam told her, smiling as he thought about her. "She's fine."  
"Yeah she is." Dean grinned. Both Sam and Lena shot him an unimpressed glance. To occupy the void that Lena was suddenly starting to feel over being away from her friends, Lena quickly asked Sam and Dean to fill her in on the case. But even after she had squeezed out every bit of information, it still wasn't enough, and began to feel empty again. She didn't know when, or if, she would be returning to school, and she didn't even know if she wanted to. The whole time she had been at school, she had been waiting to be with her brothers again, but now that she was, she would even deal with Professor Wood's monotone biology classes. She might have even made an effort to arrive on time too. Lena honestly didn't know where her head was, so she thought that the best thing for her to do would be to just take things as they came for a while. Deciding that she had nothing better to do, Lena lay down on the backseat, closed her eyes, and allowed herself to fall asleep to the soft motions of the impala moving beneath her, feeling as if nothing had changed.

A few hours later, Lena woke up, sore and groggy; asking herself why she thought it had been such a good idea to sleep in the car as she unfolded herself. She sat up, noting that Sam was on the phone, and Dean was still driving.

Lena yawned and rubbed her eyes. "Where are we?" she asked quietly as she pushed her fringe from her eyes.

"Just outside Jericho." Dean replied as Sam snapped his cell phone shut.

"Alright, so there's no one matching Dad at the hospital or morgue, so that's something I guess." Sam told them.

Lena sighed "So he's not hurt or dead in Jericho. One town, in one state; check. So that just leaves another forty-nine states, and countless other towns. Yippee." She said, sarcasm dripping from every syllable.

"Check it out." Dean nodded ahead of him, before another argument could begin, motioning to the bridge in front of them, swarming with police officers. Dean pulled up just off the bridge and reached over Sam, into the glove compartment. He pulled put a small box and searched through the various fake ids inside before settling on FBI. He handed Sam one, and then gave Lena an FBI intern id. Lena couldn't remember the last time she had needed to use a fake id, but she knew that hunting was like riding a bike. You never forget.

As soon as they got out of the car, the three of them began to hear the conversation ahead of them.

"Did you guys find anything?" A police officer yelled over the side of the bridge.

"No, nothing." Replied an unseen voice. Dean, Sam and Lena moved forwards, seeing another officer come out of a car they were searching, which seemed to be the centre of the investigation.

"No sign of struggle, no footprints, no fingerprints. Spotless, it's almost too clean" he sighed, looking frustrated and disappointed at the same time.

"So this kid Troy; he's dating your daughter, isn't he?" Another officer asked him.

The officer nodded "Yeah."

"How's Amy doing?"

"She's putting up missing posters downtown."

Dean stepped forwards and interrupted the conversation "You fellas had another one just like this last month, didn't ya?"

"Who are you?" The officer asked, narrowing his eyes warily, looking at the three strangers with suspicion.

"Federal Marshals." Dean replied casually, flipping open his id and showing the man, an air of confidence coming from every pore, stopping the officer from doubting what he was being told. No matter how many times she did this, Lena always held her breath cautiously until she knew they were in the clear. She saw the officer's eyes shift to her, and then back to Dean with a questioning look.

"Intern." Dean said, nodding towards her as the only explanation.

"You two are a little young for Marshals, aren't you?" The officer asked, looking back to Sam and Dean, seeming to accept Lena's presence.

"Thanks, that's awfully kind of you." Dean grinned broadly before turning serious again "You did have another one just like this, correct?"

"Yeah, a few miles up the road." He explained "There have been others before that."

"So this victim; you knew him?" Sam asked.

The officer nodded slowly "In a town like this, everybody knows everything."

"Any connections between the victims, besides that they're all men?" Dean asked, circling the car, covertly searching details that the cops may have missed.

"No," the officer answered, shaking his head "not so far as we can tell."

"So what's the theory?" Sam asked, following Dean. Lena hurried after them, not wanting to be left on her own.

"Honestly? We don't know." The officer admitted "Serial murder? Kidnapping ring?"

Dean gave a small grin "Well, that is exactly the kind of crack police work that I'd expect out of you guys."

Lena's eyes widened slightly, and Sam quickly stepped on Dean's foot.

"Thank you for your time." Sam grinned, hurriedly leading them away. When they were a little further away from the officers, Dean smacked Sam over the back of his head.

"Ow!" Sam yelped "What was that for?"

"Why do you have to step on my foot?" Dean shot.

"Why do you have to talk to police like that?" Sam retorted.

"Ladies," Lena warned, trailing behind "Do I have to put you two in time out?"

Dean spun around, exasperated.

"Come on! They don't really know what's going on. We're all alone on this. I mean, if we're gonna find Dad we've got to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves."

Lena noticed movement behind her brother's head, and she cleared her throat to get their attention as three more officers approached.

"Can I help you?" one of them- the sheriff- asked, his eyes hidden with dark sunglasses.

"No sir, we were just leaving." Dean smiled, nodding to the other two men as they walked past. "Agent Mulder Agent Sully."

As the three of them walked away and clambered silently into the car, they could feel the sheriff's eyes on them, but they pretended not to notice.

The town was smaller than they had originally anticipated, so within a matter of minutes, Dean had parked the car and they soon spotted a girl putting up posters, like they had heard the victim's girlfriend had been doing.

"You must be Amy." Dean commented as they approached, letting his confidence in what he was saying show; the best way he knew in making people believe him.

"Yeah." The girl confirmed warily, eyeing the three of them slightly nervously.

"Troy told us about you. We're his uncles; I'm Dean, this is Sammy," Dean explained matter-of-factly "and this is his Aunt Elena."

"He never mentioned you to me." Amy told them simply, but Dean was quick to respond; another feature of a good liar.

"Well, that's Troy I guess." He shrugged casually "We're not around much; we're up in Modesto. So we're looking for him too, and we're kind of asking around."

Before anything else could be said, another girl approached them, giving Dean, Sam and Lena cautious glances.

"Hey, are you ok?" She asked Amy, her eyes still flickering over the three strangers. Amy nodded, giving a weak smile, as if she were a little uncertain.

"Do you mind if we ask you a couple of questions?" Sam asked softly, hoping to be encouraging and comforting. Lena stayed silent, thinking that after so much time away from hunting, she had gotten out of practice, and she worried about saying something that might blow their cover. She soon found herself following behind the two girls and her brothers to a small diner in the centre of town, where they quickly sat.

"I was on the phone to Troy. He was driving home." Amy explained "He said he would call me right back, but he never did."

"He didn't say anything strange or out of the ordinary?" Sam queried.

"No," Amy shook her head "Nothing that I can remember."

"I like your necklace." Lena suddenly blurted, earning herself glances from her brothers.

Amy looked down, slightly taken aback by the sudden compliment, but she picked it up and smiled.

"Troy gave it to me, mostly to scare my parents with all that devil stuff."

"Actually," Sam interjected "it means just the opposite. A pentagram is protection against evil, really powerful. I mean, if you believe in that kind of thing." He finished quickly, noticing the surprised expression on Amy and her friend's faces.

Dean scoffed eager to take back control and direction of the conversation "Ok, thank you 'unsolved mysteries'. Here's the deal ladies; the way Troy disappeared? Something's not right. So if you've heard anything..." Dean let his speech fade out when he saw the glances the two girls were giving each other "What is it?"

Amy shifted nervously in her seat "Well, it's just...with all these guys going missing; people talk."

"What do they talk about?" The three Winchesters asked in perfect unison.

"It's kind of this local legend." Amy's friend answered "This one girl, she got murdered out on Centennial like...decades ago." Lena leaned forward in her seat, eagerly drinking in the information, and she realised just how much she had missed hunting while she had been at school. "Well, supposedly, she's still out there. She hitchhikes, and whoever she picks up- well, they disappear forever."

The library was quite; it was a small town, and nowhere got crowded very often. Dean immediately jumped onto one of the computers, leaving his younger siblings to roll over seats and sit around him. Dean hurriedly tapped at the keys, and looked momentarily disappointed when his search bought up no results. He thought for a second before trying again, only to be greeted, once again, with 'No results found.'

"Let me try." Sam muttered, moving to take the mouse.

"I got it." Dean snapped, slapping Sam's hand away. Lena saw Sam roll his eyes before shoving Dean's chair, sending him spinning out of the way. Dean rolled himself back over, smacking Sam in the arm.

"Dude," he hissed irritably, "You're such a control freak."

"So angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?" Sam asked, ignoring Dean's comment.

"Right." Lena confirmed.

Sam shrugged "Maybe it's not murder." Sam typed into the search bar, and gave a smug smirk when the computer _dinged_, signalling that it had bought up a result when Sam had entered 'Female suicide Centennial highway.'

"This is 1981." Sam read "Constance Welch, twenty-four years old; jumps off Sylvania Bridge, drowns in the river."

"Does it say why she did it?" Dean asked.

Sam scanned the article and grimaced "Yeah."

"Why?Lena asked, though she wasn't sure she wanted to know why a young woman would throw herself from a bridge.

"An hour before they found her, she calls nine-one-one; her two little kids are in the bathtub, she leaves them alone for a minute. She comes back, and they aren't breathing. Both die."

"Jeez." Lena breathed, looking away from the screen for a second, listening as Sam continued.

"'Our babies were gone and Constance just couldn't bear it' said husband Joseph Welch.'" Sam read aloud.

"Does that bridge look familiar to you?" Dean asked, pointing to the picture on the screen. Lena looked around, having to squint at the picture, since she'd left her glasses in the car. When she could see it properly, Lena noticed that it was the same bench they had been standing on only a few hours before; the one where all the men had gone missing. Lena groaned, knowing what was coming.

* * *

**A/N 2: If you're reading this, it probably means that you've read the entire first chapter, so thank you! Please R+R and let me know what you think!**


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N: Ok, so first of all, I want to point out that I have already posted this part before, but after some wonderfully helpful advice (thanks wondertogondor) I split up the first chapter into three, so if you've already read the longer version of this chapter, I apologize, and thank you, but you might want to skip this chapter, and the one afterwards. :)**_

_**Right, next: There is a part in this chapter where Lena seems a little...whiney, I think is the best way to describe it (You'll probably know which part I mean when you read it) but just remember, she hasn't seen Sam for just over two years, she's just getting into hunting again, and they aren't really any closer to finding John. So yeah, cut her some slack lol But I promise she's not like that all the time :)**_

_**Umm, I'm not sure that there's much else to say at this point... I don't own supernatural, never have never will (but I can dream), and remember 'Le'=Lay in terms of pronunciation. I've read through this chapter a few times, but if anyone spots any mistakes or anything, feel free to point them out :)**_

_**Please please PLEASE R+R! I love getting reviews! To me they equal love and warm fuzziness 3 But in all seriousness, they really help me out a lot in letting me know what I'm doing right/wrong, so I really do appreciate them. I don't mind PMs if that's what you prefer :)**_

_**Thanks again,**_

_**xoloveJBox**_

* * *

**Chapter Two- Pilot part 2**

The bridge was dark and empty when Lena, Sam and Dean stepped out of the impala hours later. A cold wind blew, and Lena wrapped her jacket tighter around herself, pulling the collar up around her neck unconsciously. As the breeze played with her fringe, Lena was glad that she twisted the rest of her hair into a loose bun, the escaping strands held into place with bobby pins. Lena walked next to her brothers, and she could feel the familiar sensation of a knife tucked into the waist of her pants, something she had done every day before she had left for school.

"So this is where Constance took the swan dive." Dean commented as he peered over the edge of the bridge.

"So you think Dad would have been here?" Sam asked, glancing over at Dean.

Dean shrugged "Well, he's chasing the same story, and we're chasing him."

Lena looked away. She had been trying not to think of their father and the fact that he was missing. She was trying to focus on the most immediate problems, one at a time, but her father's disappearance was an underlying issue, throbbing covertly under everything else.

"Ok, so what now?" Sam questioned, breaking into Lena's line of thought.

"Now we keep digging 'til we find him." Dean told them simply before letting out a sigh and muttering "It might take a while."

"Dean, I told you," Sam interjected determinedly "I've gotta get back by-"

"Monday." Dean interrupted him abruptly "Right, the interview."

"Yeah." Sam nodded, and he could tell that Dean wasn't happy about it, but what was he supposed to do? He wouldn't stay. He couldn't.

"Yeah, I forgot." Dean lied. Lena almost chuckled. She knew that her brothers forgot just how well she knew them, and she was fully aware that Dean had far from forgotten about the fact that Sam was itching to leave again. In fact, if she had to guess, Lena would bet that Dean had thought a lot about it.

"You're really serious about this, aren't you?" Dean asked incredulously "You think you're just gonna become some lawyer? Marry your girl?"

Lena could tell that Dean couldn't wrap his head around the idea of something so normal, but she also could see from the flicker of expression on Sam's face that he could think of nothing better.

"Maybe." Sam shrugged, feigning nonchalance "Why not?"

Dean narrowed his eyes slightly "Does Jessica know the truth about you?" he asked, a little spitefully, making Lena wince. "I mean, does she know about the things you've done?"

"No, and she's not ever going to know." Sam told him firmly, his body stiffening defensively.

"Well, that's healthy." Dean muttered, though he knew full-well that Sam could hear him. "You can pretend all you want Sammy, but sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are." Lena rolled her eyes at Dean's dramatises. She refused to, or didn't want to; believe that anyone was defined by what they did. Not even hunters. Well, she thought, we can dream. She watched as Dean stalked away; a move he always pulled when he wanted to have the last say in a 'discussion'. It used to work, but Sam seemed to have moved on from letting him, because he quickly followed. Lena remained firmly where she was; not wanting to get involved.

"Who is that?" Sam asked, his voice spiked with irritation.

"One of us." Dean answered him simply, nodding over to Lena before looking Sam straight in the eyes.

"No." Sam shot back. "I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life."

"You've got responsibility." Dean told him. If Lena had thought that Dean was being serious before, she knew that it was nothing compared to his new tone.

"To Dad and his crusade?" Sam exclaimed "If it weren't for pictures, I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. Elena was made in a damn test-tube because Dad couldn't let go." Lena stiffened slightly at her sudden involuntary involvement in their argument. She couldn't understand why Sam had to bring up the fact that she had been conceived _after_ her mother had been killed; using eggs that her parents had been trying to make another child with in a clinic anyway after Sam was born, because they hadn't managed to conceive again naturally since, and they had both secretly wanted their boys to have a sister." What difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her; Mom's gone, and she isn't coming back."

Lena jumped when she heard crashing against the grate of the bridge, and she turned to see that Dean had pinned Sam to the metal, holding onto the front of his jacket.

"Don't talk about her like that." Dean muttered darkly.

She crossed over to them in three big strides, putting her hand gently on Dean's chest.

"Let him go." Lena told him quietly. She knew why Dean was so upset about what Sam had said. Dean had been four years old when their mother had been killed; just about old enough to still remember things about her, and that made it so much harder for him than it was for Sam and Lena.

Slowly, Dean released Sam's clothes from his grip and turned away. Lena shot Sam an angry glare, because she knew that Sam knew exactly what he had said, even if he hadn't actually intended to say it. However, when Lena went to look back at Dean, she saw a shocked expression on his face, and she followed his gaze, seeing a dark haired woman, wearing a flowing white dress standing on the edge of the bridge. She was staring at them with steely resolution. Lena felt Sam move closer to her, but before any of them could get any closer, the woman let herself fall forward, out of their view. Lena gasped, rushing forwards with her brothers, looking over the edge. Her eyes searched frantically for the woman, but Lena could see no disturbance in the water. It was as if nothing had happened. The woman was nowhere to be seen.

"Where'd she go?" Dean exclaimed.

"I don't know." Sam replied, all three of them still looking for any kind of sign that the woman was there. However, the rumble of the impala's engine started

, distracted them, and they all shot around.

"Who's driving your car?" Sam asked, dumbfounded. Dean reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys.

Suddenly the car started to rush towards them. Sam grabbed Lena's hand, and the three of them took off running.

"Come on Dean!" Sam yelled, not very helpfully "Let's go! Go!"

All of a sudden, Lena found herself being flung over the side of the bridge by her brothers, and she scrambled desperately to grab the edge before she tumbled into the water below. She scrunched her eyes closed tightly, waiting to splash into the ice cold river, but when it didn't happen, she tentatively opened one eye, then the other, and realised that she was actually holding on.

"Are you ok?" Sam asked breathlessly. Lena nodded, not trusting herself to speak at that moment. She simply held on tighter, looking around for Dean. Sam's eyes widened when he realised that it was just the two of them hanging on.

"Dean!" He yelled, looking down into the water frantically "Dean!"

Lena's eyes scanned the water desperately for movement, and she breathed a small sigh of relief when she spotted Dean crawling out of the water.

"What?" he shouted, clearly more than a little bit exasperated.

"Are you alright?" Sam yelled back.

"I'm super." Dean replied sarcastically, collapsing on the muddy bank, exhausted.

Satisfied that Dean was ok, Lena and Sam clambered back over the railing, landing on shaky limbs. Lena had to stand still for a minute to steady herself, and by the time she moved back over to where the car had abandoned itself, Dean was strolling towards them, covered head to toe in dirt and muck. Wordlessly, Dean yanked open the hood of the vehicle and inspected it meticulously for a minute.

"Car alright?" Sam finally asked, breaking the silence that had fallen over the three of them.

"Yeah. Whatever she did to it, it seems alright now." Dean sighed, closing the hood and leaning against the exterior of the car. "That Constance chick; what a bitch!" he yelled into the dark emptiness that surrounded the three siblings.

"Well, she doesn't want us digging around, that's for sure." Sam added as he and Lena stood either side of Dean. Lena fought the urge to climb fully onto the car, feeling suddenly exhausted, knowing that Dean would kill her, so she settled instead for copying Dean and using the metal frame as a support to lean on. She had forgotten just how much hard work hunting was.

"So where's the trail go from here, genius?" Sam asked. Dean shrugged. Lena stayed silent. Sam thought for a minute and crinkled his nose slightly, turning to Dean. "Dude, you smell like a toilet."

Before Lena really knew what they were doing or how they had gotten there, she found herself in the reception of the first motel they came across in town. Dean, still covered in the sludge from the river, slammed one of his many fake credit cards onto the desk.

"One room please." Dean told the man there, completely deadpan.

The man picked up Dean's card and inspected, narrowing his eyes as if he knew there was something wrong with it. He opened his mouth to speak, and Lena was sure that they were busted.

"You guys having a reunion or something?" he asked, looking up at the three of them.

Sam furrowed his eyebrows "What do you mean?"

"That other guy, Bert Aframian. He came in and bought out a room for the whole month."

Lena looked across to Sam and Dean, seeing their expressions. Sam looked confused, and Dean looked hopeful. Lena wasn't sure how she felt.

They quickly went across to their father's room. Lena crouched down in front of the door and pulled one of the clips from her hair. She slid it into the key hole and swiftly picked the lock, letting them inside.

"Nice job Le." Sam commented with a smile.

Lena smirked "What can I say? I'm good at what I do."

The two of them went in, and when Lena went to close the door behind them, she saw that Dean was still outside, apparently taking in the view. She rolled her eyes and grabbed the back of his jacket, yanking him inside.

The three of them stood just inside the door, looking at the chaos inside the room. The bed sheets were scrambled , and the walls had been decorated with pictures and articles, most of them littered with their father's messy scrawling handwriting. The rest of the room wasn't much neater, but Lena knew that her father wasn't exactly a domestic goddess.

Sam gave a low whistle "Whoa."

Dean flicked on the lamp and held up a half eaten cheeseburger from the bedside table. He sniffed it and grimaced. "I don't think he's been here for a couple of days, at least."

"Salt, cats-eye shells." Sam sighed, picking up a handful of the salt-circle on the floor. "He was worried, trying to keep something from coming." He looked up to see Dean looking at the papers on the walls, and Sam stood up. "What do you got there?"

"Centennial Highway victims." Dean replied "I don't get it. I mean, different men, different jobs, ages, ethnicities. There's always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common?"

Lena shrugged. Sam continued to scrutinise the papers on the wall.

"Dad figured it out." He finally laughed. Lena and Dean wandered over to him, to see what he had found. "He found the same article we did. Constance Welch. She's a woman in white."

"You sly dogs." Dean smirked, looking at the various men's photographs up on the wall.

"Alright, so if we're dealing with a woman in white, Dad would have found the corpse and destroyed it." Lena said matter-of-factly. She knew what a woman in white was, and she didn't particularly want to think about adulterous husbands and murdered children.

"She might have another weakness." Sam suggested simply.

"No, Dad would want to make sure. He'd dig her up." Dean argued, suddenly in 'work' mode again "Does it say where she's buried."

"No, not that I can tell." Sam replied, scanning over the article once again "If I were Dad though, I'd go ask her husband. If he's still alive."

"Alright," Dean sighed "why don't you see if you can find an address. I'm gonna get cleaned up."

Lena crinkled her nose slightly. "Good. You stink."

"Why thank you, Princess." Dean replied sarcastically before turning to go to the bathroom, grabbing his bag.

"Hey Dean." Sam blurted to get his brother's attention "What I said earlier, about Mom and Dad; I'm sorry."

Dean held up his hands "No chick flick moments." Lena smiled. She knew that Dean had accepted Sam's apology, and she could go back to breathing easy, instead of waiting for her brothers to start arguing.

"Alright." Sam smiled before adding "Jerk."

"Bitch." Dean replied with a smirk. Lena should have guessed that it was coming. For as long as Lena could remember, whenever Sam called Dean a jerk, bitch was sure to follow. Dean disappeared into the bathroom, leaving his younger siblings alone.

"So," Lena started casually "this interview thing; you think you got a chance?"

Sam shrugged nonchalantly "I dunno. Maybe."

"And what about what Dean said earlier; about you getting married? You think that'll happen?"

"I hope so." Sam told her honestly, with a small grin.

Lena started to pick things up around the room, to distract herself as she continued "Can I come?"

"To my wedding?" Sam asked, his eyebrows raised into his hairline with surprise.

Lena nodded, throwing the bed-sheets into place.

"Of course you can." Sam told her, wondering where the conversation had come from, and where it was going.

"Would I have to wear a dress?"

Sam laughed heartily "Not if you don't want to."

Lena seemed to physically relax, and Sam's expression hardened. "Where is this coming from Le?" he asked, stepping towards her. Lena could feel Sam getting closer, but she kept her back to him, wishing that she had chosen not to voice her insecurities.

"I was just thinking, you know, since you're going back...I was just...I don't want you to push me out anymore Sammy." She explained, not even sure if she was making sense.

"Push you out? Elena, I-" Sam started, but Lena shot him a sceptical glance.

"Come on Sam. When was the last time you called me, just to talk? For no other reason?"

Sam opened his mouth to answer her, but quickly realised that he couldn't remember the last time. Lena knew that was what his silence meant, so she continued.

"You never visited me. You never invited me to visit you, and the way you left; I wasn't just going to come unannounced."

"I didn't know you wanted to come and visit me."

"More than anything!" Lena exclaimed "But I'm a minor Sam, it's not like I can just hop on a plane. You're embarrassed of us Sam, and that's cool. I understand that you don't want your girlfriend to know about our life. I get it, you know? I haven't told my friends. I don't want them to have to know. But I promise I can pretend to be normal Sam."

Lena could feel tears welling up in her eyes, and she tried to force them back again. She had never felt so childish in her life, but she knew that she was having to condense everything she had been itching to tell her brother for years into a few simple sentences. Before she could stop him, Sam had turned her around and was wrapping his long arms around her. Lena tried to resist at first, but then it hit her again just how much she had missed Sam, and she buried her face into his chest, clinging onto his t-shirt.

"I just want the four of us to be a family again." She mumbled "I know it's never going to happen, but I at least want to try."

"I'll tell you what, Christmas is coming." Sam started, "So how about I fly down to get you and you can spend your Christmas break with me at Stanford. How's that sound?"

"I'd like that Sammy." Lena whispered with a watery smile. She held onto him for another minute before gently shoving him away. "Alright, no more chick flick moments." She laughed, roughly wiping tears from her cheeks before Dean saw them.

"Alright." Sam promised, sitting down on the bed and pulling out his phone to listen to a voicemail he had noticed earlier.

"Hey man, I'm starving." Dean announced loudly as he left the bathroom, showered and changed. "I'm gonna grab a little something to eat at that diner down the street. You guys want anything?"

"No." Sam told him quietly, trying to listen to his voicemail.

"Aframian's buying." Dean teased, shaking his fake credit card around a little. "What about you Princess? You fancy a bite?"

"Nah," Lena sighed "I think I'm gonna take a nap, I'm exhausted."

Dean shrugged "Suit yourselves."

Once Dean had gone, closing the door behind himself, Lena slipped off her shoes and lay down on the bed, her toes wiggling next to Sam, who was listening to the last few seconds of Jess's message. Lena closed her eyes, but she knew that she probably wasn't going to fall asleep. As Sam's message finished, Lena heard his phone beep, telling him that he had another call coming in.

"What?" he snapped, suddenly half-wishing he had stayed at home with Jess. Even through the tinny speaker of the phone, Lena could hear Dean on the other end.

"Dude, five-o. Take off."

Sam smacked Lena's feet to get her attention.

"What about you?" Sam asked as Lena quickly shoved her shoes back on and started to gather their things back into the bags.

"Uh, they kind of spotted me." Dean whispered "Go find Dad."

"Come on, we've got to go." Sam told Lena, gathering his and Dean's bag into his arms while pushing his sister into the bathroom. They scrambled out of the window and rushed to the side of the motel. They almost ran straight out to the impala, Lena slammed Sam back against the wall as the police cruiser drove past them. When it was out of sight, they hurried over to the car, threw everything into the back seat and drove away.

"We need to go and see Mr Welch." Sam told Lena after a few minutes of flustered silence.

"What about Dean?"

"He'll be fine until we know a little more." Sam replied, deadpan. Lena nodded, knowing he was right but she wasn't happy about it. As they drove the rest of the way to Mr Welch's house, they came up with their cover story; that they were journalists, doing research for a story. They arrived quickly, and Sam knocked gingerly on the front door.

They waited nervously for a few long seconds before a man in an old, off-white t-shirt and fraying baseball cap came to the door.

"Hi, err," Sam stumbled "Are you Joseph Welch?"

"Yeah," he replied simply "Who are you?"

Lena shut off as Sam fed the man the story, and she looked around, taking in everything in case something looked to be important. Lena vaguely noticed Sam pulling her along as they started to move, but she continued to scan everything she could see. She decided that the surroundings were irrelevant, and when she tuned back into the conversation, Mr Welch was holding the photograph Sam had found at the motel, of just the three boys, taken a few months before Lena had been born.

"Yeah, he was older, but that's him." Joseph answered, though Lena didn't know what the question had been "He came by three or four days ago, said he was a reporter."

"That's right," Sam nodded enthusiastically "We're working on a story together."

"Well I don't know what kind of story you're working on, the questions he asked me." Mr Welch sighed.

"About your late wife Constance?" Sam asked, shooting Lena a hopeful glance.

"He asked me where she was buried." Mr Welch told them incredulously, as if they should be surprised.

"And where is that again?" Lena questioned, feigning casualness.

Joseph glared at her "What? I got to go through these twice?"

"Its fact checking." Sam told him hurriedly "If you don't mind."

"In a plot behind my old place over on Breckenridge."

"Why did you move?" Sam asked, and Lena cringed. What a stupid ass question, she thought.

"I'm not going to live in the house where my children died." Mr Welch replied, looking at Sam as if he were stupid, and Lena couldn't blame him.

"Mr Welch, did you ever marry again?" Sam asked, hoping to move on in the conversation.

"No way." Joseph stated immediately. He suddenly looked like he wasn't with them anymore, instead being in some far away time of past. "Constance, she was the love of my life. Prettiest woman I ever known."

"So you had a happy marriage?" Lena questioned.

"Definitely" Mr Welch replied, though neither Sam nor Lena missed his hesitance.

"Well, that should do it." Sam nodded, and he and Lena turned towards the car. "Thanks for your time."

Lena opened her door and was about to get in when Sam suddenly turned around again.

"Mr Welch, you ever hear of a woman in white?" he asked. Lena furrowed her brow, wondering where Sam was going.

Mr Welch looked just as confused "A what?"

"A woman in white." Sam repeated, taking a step towards the other man "or sometimes a weeping woman. It's a ghost story. Well, it's more of a phenomenon really. Um, they're spirits. They've been cited for hundreds of years. Dozens of places; in Hawaii and Mexico- lately in Arizona and Indiana. All these are different women you understand, but all share the same story."

"Boy, I don't care much for nonsense." Welch spat, his face and tone suddenly much darker.

"You see," Sam continued, choosing to ignore the comment. "When they were alive, their husbands were unfaithful to them." Lena suddenly realised then what her brother was doing and she cringed, unsure that it was going to make any difference. "And these women, basically suffering from temporary insanity, murdered their children. Then, once they realised what they had done, they took their own lives. So now their spirits are cursed; walking back roads, waterways, and if they find an unfaithful man, they kill him, and that man is never seen again."

"You think...You think this has something to do with Constance?" Joseph stuttered "You smartass."

Sam shrugged, deadpan "You tell me."

"I mean, maybe- maybe I made some mistakes, but no matter what I did, Constance would never would have killed her children." Mr Welch continued, his voice beginning to shake and his eyes welling up, giving Sam and Lena every confirmation they needed. "Now you get the hell out of here, and don't you come back."

Wordlessly, Joseph turned and stalked angrily away.

"Well that went well." Lena commented "Smooth move Samson."

Sam shot her a glare and the two of them clambered into the impala and drove away. When they were a fair distance away from Mr Welch's house, Sam pulled out his cell phone.

"Hello, police? Yeah, I think I heard gunshots over on Whiteford Road." He said simply, hanging up almost immediately. He looked across at Lena, who was smirking at him.

"What?" He asked.

"Nothing." Lena chimed with a wry smile, turning to look out the window. The silence in the car was soon filled with the sound of Sam's ringtone, and he snapped open the phone again.

"Hello?"  
"Fake nine-one-one call Sammy?" Dean chuckled. When Sam heard that it was Dean, he quickly put the call onto loudspeaker. "I don't know, that's pretty illegal."

"You're welcome," Sam retorted dryly.

"Listen, we gotta talk." Dean said, suddenly serious.

Sam sighed "Tell me about it. So, the husband was unfaithful. We _are _dealing with a woman in white. She's buried behind her old house, so that should have been Dad's next stop."  
"Sammy, would you shut up for a second?" Dean shot, cutting Sam off before he could carry on. Lena heard the tone of her brother's voice and leaned forward slightly in her seat.

"I just can't figure out why he hasn't destroyed the corpse yet." Sam added, obviously eager to get his thoughts vocalised.

"Well that's what I've been trying to tell you." Dean replied "He's gone. Dad left Jericho."

"What?" Lena exclaimed "How do you know?"

"I've got his journal." Dean told them, clearly not happy about the latest revelation.

"He left his journal?" Sam asked, looking across at Lena.

"He doesn't go anywhere without that." Lena sighed, unsure what she was supposed to think, or what they were supposed to do about it.

"Yeah, well he did this time."  
"What does it say?" Sam asked.

"Same old ex-marine crap when he wants to let us who where he's going." Dean told him.

Sam sighed "Coordinates. Where to?"  
"I'm not sure yet." Dean admitted.

"I don't understand. I mean, what could be so important that Dad would just skip out in the middle of a job?" Sam sighed, exasperated "Dean, what the hell is going on?"

Lena rubbed a hand over her face, closing her eyes for a minute, feeling momentarily overwhelmed with all of the things happening around her, which she had no control over. When she opened her eyes again, the sight of a figure in the middle of the road just ahead of them made her eyes widen with fear.


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N: Hey guys!**_

_**Okie doke, well, this is the last chapter of the pilot episode! So far, I have had so much fun writing this! I've tried a lot of new things in terms of how I write with this, some I'll carry on with, some I may not, but it's been a learning experience, so yeah!**_

_**Thank you to everyone who has reviewed! They mean so much to me, and I'd love to get some more feedback on this story, so please please PLEASE let me know what you think!**_

_**Disclaimer: Anything you recognise=Not mine, which sucks for me!**_

_**Hugs,**_

_**xoloveJBox**_

* * *

**Chapter Three- Pilot- part 3**

"Sam!" she screamed.

"Whoa!" Sam yelled, dropping the cell phone as he gripped onto the steering wheel and slammed on the breaks, listening to them squeal. Lena threw her hands over her head, convinced that she would be rained upon by the shattering of the windscreen. When the car finally skidded to a halt, after what felt like hours, Lena could hear Dean's voice coming through the now forgotten phone lying somewhere on the floor.

"Sam? Lena? Sam!"

Lena sensed movement behind her and she spun around in her seat, only to be greeted by Constance Welch, the woman in white, in the backseat.

"Get out." She demanded in a cold voice, and before Lena had a chance to even take a breath, she found herself skidding along the asphalt of the road, thrown from the car by a flick of Constance's eyes. Lena scrambled to her feet and ran back over to the car, but before she could get there, the car took off at a high speed, leaving Lena trailing in its dust. Not knowing what else to do, Lena yanked out her cell phone and dialled a familiar number.

"Lena?" Dean exclaimed down the line after only one or two rings "Are you alright?"

"She's got Sam." Lena blurted, panting hard as she struggled to calm herself down.

"Ok, calm down." Dean said, trying to reassure her, though she could hear the alarm seeping into his own voice. "Listen to me; I think she's going to take him to her old house, where she's buried. You think you can get there on your own?"

"Yeah, I'm not too far away, so it shouldn't take me long." Lena started to walk, feeling better now that she had a solid plan to work to. She looked down at herself and groaned.

"What's the matter?" Dean asked "Are you hurt?"

"No, but the bitch ripped a hole in my favourite jeans." Lena replied.

"Well, then it's a good job we're going to blow her away. I'll meet you at the house, ok?"  
"Alright." Lena confirmed, hanging up the phone. She brushed herself off as she walked, but she couldn't stop her mind from imagining all the things that could be happening to Sam, and the thoughts propelled her forwards hurriedly. She moved on autopilot until she finally found herself at the edge of the Welch's driveway. She breathed a small sigh of relief when she saw the impala sitting there.

"Lena" Dean's voice called, and she spun around, seeing Dean just behind her, coming from a different direction to the one she had come from. She hurried over to him, and he only just had time to look her over before they heard Sam screaming from the car. Without thinking, they both sprinted over, and Dean held up his gun, sending bullets flying through the front window. They saw Sam sit up, and he looked relatively unharmed, but before Lena or Dean could actually check, Sam turned on the engine.

"I'm taking you home." He muttered, seemingly to no-one, and the car took off again.  
"Sam!" Lena and Dean called in unison, watching with horror-stricken faces as the impala crashed through the front of the building. They ran in after him, picking through debris to get to the car.

"Sam! You ok?" he asked, leaning inside the car.

"I think." Sam groaned, sitting up much as he could.

"Can you move?" Lena asked, concern etched into her features, darkening her usually bright green eyes.

"Yeah, help me."

Lena and Dean reached inside the car and each grabbed one of Sam's hands, easing him out of the car. But none of them had noticed that Constance had returned, and was inspecting a photograph of her and her children that had fallen to the floor. By the time Sam, Dean and Lena were all stood outside the car again, Constance was stepping aside, flinging a large, heavy wooden dresser at them, pinning them against the side of the impala. The three of them tried to push it away, fighting against it, but Constance's control over it was too strong, and the dresser moved about as much as it would have if they were trying to use a feather to push it out the way.

The lights in the house started to flicker, and everyone, including Constance, looked around in surprise. Lena followed Constance's gaze to the top of the staircase, where there was the shadows of two much smaller forms.

"You've come home to us Mommy." They chimed in sickly sweet, sing-songy tones. Lena blinked, and suddenly the two children were at the bottom, next to Constance. She backed away from them slightly, but the children were quicker, and they grabbed her into a hug that left her screaming in agony. The three of them flickered and began to melt, leaving Lena, Sam and Dean to watch, helpless against the metal frame of the car. But as soon as Constance and her children were gone, they felt the pressure of the dresser ease away, and they found that they could shove it enough to get out from behind. Lena followed her brothers as they gingerly stepped towards the spot where they had watched the ghosts disappear.

"So this is where she drowned her kids." Dean commented, nodding down at the wet puddle on the floor.

"That's why she could never go home." Sam muttered, seemingly to himself more than anything "She was too scared to face them."

"You found her weak spot. Nice job Sammy." Dean grinned, clapping Sam on his chest.

Sam gave a pained laugh "I wish I could say the same for you. What were you thinking, shooting Casper in the face you freak?"

"Hey, saved your ass." Dean shot back, striding over to his car and bending down to inspect it "I'll tell you another thing; if you screwed up my car, I'll kill you." He promised, and Lena knew that he was serious too.

It didn't take the three of them long to haul the wood and debris from the car, and soon they were driving. Lena held a flashlight over Sam's shoulder as he tried to find the location of the coordinates in the journal.

"Ok, so here's where Dad went." He finally announced "It's called Blackwater Ridge, Colorado."

Dean smirked "Sounds charming. How far?"

"About six hundred miles." Sam replied, quickly doing the calculation in his head.

"If we shag ass we can make it by morning." Dean nodded, looking optimistic. Sam shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Dean, umm..." he started nervously.

"You're not coming." Dean guessed, clearly disappointed.

"The interview's in ten hours." Sam argued "I've gotta be there."

"Yeah, yeah," Dean shrugged "whatever. I'll take you home."

The hours passed by in a slightly awkward silence, and Lena wasn't sure whether to feel happy once it was over, because they had pulled up outside of Sam's apartment building. Silently Sam got out of the car, and Lena followed so that she could climb into the front seat.

"You'll call me when you find him?" Sam asked as he closed Lena's door for her and leaned in through the window. Dean simply nodded "Maybe I can meet up with you later, huh?"

"Yeah, alright." Dean agreed, but Lena couldn't tell just how truthful he was being.

"See you later Gigantor." Lena teased, and Sam shot her a warm smile before turning. They watched him leave for a few paces, before Dean leaned over.

"Sam," he called out the still open window. Sam turned around to face them again "You know, we made a hell of a team back there."

Sam sighed "Yeah." Was his only reply before he continued into the building.

Dean pulled away silently, and Lena left him to himself for a little while. She knew that Dean had been hoping to convince Sam to stay with them, but that was just too good to be true.

"What about you?" Dean suddenly asked "You want me to take you back to school?"  
Lena thought about it for a minute. She kind of wanted to, but she couldn't honestly say she was bothered either way, and she didn't think she could bear being the cause of Dean's disappointment and hurt, like Sam had been.

"Nah," she finally shrugged "I might as well make leaving worth it; give them a chance to miss me."

Dean shot her a wide grin, and Lena knew she had made the right decision. It wouldn't hurt for a few months, right?

Despite the late hour, Lena was wide awake, so she leaned forward to switch on the radio. However, instead of hearing music, static erupted through the speakers, cackling through the car. Lena and Dean glanced at each other.

"Well, that's never good." Lena mumbled.

Dean looked down at his watch, sighed and held out his wrist so that Lena could see too. It had stopped. Wordlessly, Dean made a U turn before speeding back towards Sam's apartment.

The window was already glowing orange when they screeched to a halt.

"Stay here!" Dean yelled to Lena as he scrambled from the car, but she ignored him and followed. Dean grabbed the door handle, but it wouldn't budge, so he took a step back and booted it open.

"Sam!" he called, momentarily stopping in the doorway, but only until they heard Sam screaming from another room. They tore off to the sound of Sam's voice, and they finally found him in his bedroom, lying on the bed, too scared to move.

"Jess! No!" Sam hollered, and Lena followed his gaze to the ceiling, where Jess's body was being engulfed in a blanket of flame. Lena's stomach churned, and she remained frozen in her spot in the doorway. Dean rushed forwards and grabbed Sam, pulling him away as Sam continued to cry and yell.

"We gotta get out of here." Dean told his brother through gritted teeth as Sam fought against him, but all three of them knew that there was nothing they could do. There was no saving Jess, just as there had been no saving their mother, exactly twenty-two years before.

They fell out the door only seconds before the fire brigade arrived, rushing onto the scene to put out the blaze. As soon as Dean was sure that Sam wasn't going to try and go back inside, he let him go. Sam, clearly unsure what exactly to do, stalked off to the impala, kicked the wheels a few times and leaned against the trunk with his back to the building. Dean and Lena left him to himself as they watched, along with the gathering crowd, as the fire was being fought against.

Before the job was done, Dean turned to check on Sam, seeing him digging around in the trunk of the car. He tapped Lena's shoulder and nodded towards Sam, and they walked over to him. Lena placed a hand on his back gently, but Sam pretended not to notice. He was busy loading a rifle. Lena wasn't sure what, if there was anything, she could say to make Sam feel better. Dean apparently didn't know either, because he simply looked helplessly at his younger brother. Sam glanced at Dean, sighed, and tossed the gun into the trunk.

"We've got work to do." He said with a steely resolve, and Lena knew that things were just getting started.

* * *

_**A/N 2: So how was that? Good? Crap? Let me know!**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N: Howdy! How's everyone doing?**_

_**Ok, so the other day I had a break between lessons at college, and I made a really good start on the third episode's chapters, so I thought I'd start posting the second one a liiiiiitle earlier than I planned :D **_

_**Thanks for all the reviews/follows etc! I really appreciate them, and they motive me a lot, so keep them coming! haha :)**_

_**Disclaimer: Anything you recognise does not belong to me, no matter how much I kick and scream (believe me, I've tried it haha)**_

_**I'm going to be quiet now :) Remember to R+R! They really help, and I love to read them. Even criticism, as long as it is constructive, is more than welcomed, so if you think this chapter is the worst stringment of words on the face of the planet, let me know!**_

_**lots of hugs and virtual cookies,**_

_**xoloveJBox**_

* * *

_**Chapter Four- Wendigo.- Part 1**_

Lena stretched out on the back seat, barely awake as she reached for her glasses and pushed them onto her face.

"Morning Princess." Dean smiled, and Lena looked around groggily as she tried to roll the tension from her shoulders. She had forgotten just how uncomfortable it was to sleep in the back seat of the impala. The sun was high in the sky, shining warmly through the window. Sam had his head against the back of his seat, snoring lightly.

"How long was I asleep?" Lena asked quietly, knowing that Sammy hadn't had much sleep in the week since Jess's funeral.

"A couple of hours." Dean replied simply.

"What about Samson?" Lena questioned, nodding her head at Sam.

"A little less than you. Took a while for him to go, but he finally did." Dean explained, casting a quick glance at Sam.

"You think he's gonna be ok?" Lena wondered, leaning forwards with her chin on her folded arms on the back of the chair.

Dean thought for a second before shaking his head "Not even close."

Sam's head shot up as he jolted awake, breathing hard, eyes wide for a second before he realised that he was awake.

"You ok?" Lena asked him softly.

Sam sighed, holding his head in his hands "I'm fine."

Lena and Dean glanced at each other dejectedly. Sam was lying, and they both knew it. He was far from fine.

"Another nightmare?" Dean guessed. Sam gave him all the confirmation he needed when he simply cleared his throat rather than actually answering. Lena had no clue what her brother had dreamt about, but she was pretty sure she had a good idea.

"You wanna drive?" Dean asked.

"In your whole life you never once asked me that." Sam chuckled incredulously.

"Just thought you might want to, never mind." Dean muttered, mock defensively.

"Can I drive?" Lena queried hopefully.

Dean scoffed "Not a chance Princess." Lena pouted and leaned back in her seat, pulling her knees up to her chest.

"Look man," Sam continued "You're worried about me. I get it- and thank you- but I'm perfectly ok." Dean nodded, but they all knew that the conversation wasn't really finished, though Sam seemed perfectly content to pretend "Alright. Where are we?"

"We are just outside Grand Junction." Dean told him as Sam pulled out a map from the glove compartment and began to study it.

"You know what?" Sam sighed, trying to locate the right place on the map on his lap "Maybe we shouldn't have left Stanford so soon."

"Sam, we dug around there for a week." Dean replied, slightly exasperated. It wasn't the first time the topic had come up."We came up with nothing. If you wanna find the thing that killed Jessica..."

"We gotta find Dad first." Sam finished with a sigh. Lena knew that Sam just wanted answers, and she wished she had some to give him, but she was just as clueless as her brothers.

"Dad disappearing and this thing showing up again after twenty years, it's no coincidence." Dean remarked "Dad will have answers. He'll know what to do."

Dean sounded so confident that Lena almost believed him. But their father had been searching for answers for twenty-two years, and as far as she knew, he had come up with nothing. What made now any different?

"It's weird man. These coordinated he left us, this Blackwater Ridge." Sam murmured, clearly wanting to shift the conversational topic.

"What about it?" Lena asked, grateful for the distraction herself.

"There's nothing there." Sam told them "It's just woods. Why is he sending us to the middle of nowhere?"

Unable to answer the question, along with a growing pile of others, the three of them sat silently, and they soon passed a sign that announced "Welcome to Lost Creek, Colorado." Within a few minutes, Dean was pulling up outside of a visitors centre

"So, Blackwater Ridge is pretty remote," Sam explained as they got out of the car and walked towards the building "It's cut off by these canyons here, rough terrain and dense forest. Abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place."

There was no one around inside, so Sam and Lena examined the 3D map of the area in the centre of the room, hoping to salvage a little more information from it, while Dean looked around at the pictures on the wall.

"Dude," he suddenly murmured, nodding towards the picture in front of him "check out the size of this friggin' bear."

"And a dozen or so more grizzlies in the area." Sam commented, looking over and rolling his eyes "It's no nature hike, that's for sure."

A sudden voice behind them made them all jump "You boys aren't planning on going out near Blackwater Ridge by any chance?" The Winchesters spun around to spot a ranger, his thumbs tucked into the waistband of his pants, looking at them with expectant eyes.

"Oh, no sir," Sam stammered, slightly taken by surprise "We're environmental study majors from UC Boulder, just working on a paper."

"Recycle man." Dean added with a wide grin.

"Bull," the ranger scoffed, making Lena shot a worried glance across at her brothers "You're friends with that Haley girl, right?"

Dean nodded quickly, looking at the man's id tag. "Yes, yes we are ranger...Wilkinson."

"Well," Ranger Wilkinson sighed, clearly exasperated and annoyed "I'll tell you exactly what we told her; her brother filled out a backcountry permit saying he wouldn't be back from Blackwater until the twenty-fourth. So it's not exactly a missing person now, is it?"

Sam and Dean shook their heads as if they actually knew what he was talking about, and all three of them allowed their selves a brief sigh of relief that they still had at least a chance of salvaging their lie. The ranger, however, seemed completely oblivious to their expressions, so he simply continued "You tell that girl to quit worrying; I'm sure her brother's just fine."

"We will," Dean promised before adding "Well that Haley girl's quite a pistol, huh?"

Lena mentally rolled her eyes. Why did he have to damn well push it?

"That's putting it mildly." Ranger Wilkinson replied, shaking his head slightly.

"Actually, you know what would help, is if I could show her a copy of that backcountry permit. You know, so she could see her brothers return date." Dean added quickly, a charming innocence that would calm an angry rhino oozing from every pore. Lena had almost forgotten how convincing he could be, and she could almost imagine him jumping on the desk, beating his chest triumphantly and calling 'Oh the cleverness of me!' like Peter Pan, only a little more X rated. She had to admit that her eldest brother did have a certain quality about him that, in the past, had kept her from remaining angry at him for long, no matter what he did.

Lena couldn't believe it when, less than five minutes later, they were walking out of the building, a copy of the permit flapping slightly in the light breeze, pinched between Dean's fingers to keep it from escaping. She couldn't believe how easy it had been- Dean had simply asked for it- but then she remembered just how naively trusting people could be if you were good enough at convincing them that you were telling the truth.

"What, are you cruising for a hook up or something?" Sam asked with a slightly biting undertone to his voice as they reached the car.

Dean chuckled absent-mindedly "What do you mean?"

"The coordinates lead to Blackwater Ridge, so what are we waiting for?" Sam explained "Let's just go find Dad. I mean, why even talk to this girl?"

Lena knew that Sam had a point, but she wasn't sure she liked this new gung-ho, keyed up Sam. It just wasn't him.

"I dunno. Maybe we should know what we're walking into, _before _we actually walk into it." Dean shrugged, but Lena could tell that he was thinking the same as she was. Sam was the one who kept them grounded; he did most of the research so that they always knew what they were up against. He always calculated the best plan so that they could do the job and leave, relatively unharmed. If Sam started to adapt an overzealous attitude to hunting, they were all screwed.

"What?" Sam demanded, catching the questioning look that Dean was throwing at him.

"Well, since when are you all shoot first, ask questions later anyway?" Dean asked with a slight smirk.

"Since now." Sam replied simply.

"Oh really?" Dean scoffed, pretending to be amused. Sam scowled wordlessly, getting into the car. Conversation over, apparently. Dean shot Lena a look of concern and confusion, and she mirrored it to tell him that she knew what he meant. Needless to say, they would both be keeping their eye on Sammy for a while.

The air in the impala on the drive to the girl's house was stifling, and Lena had to crack open the window to feel like she could breathe.

They slid silently from the car when Dean pulled up, and Dean rapped his knuckles determinedly on the door. Lena avoided both her brothers' gazes, unsure whether she would have preferred Sam's cold distantness, or Dean's uncertainty.

Lena was distracted from the internal mental debate, however, when a young woman, maybe a year or two younger than Dean, opened one door, but left the shutter between them.

"You must be Haley Collins." Dean commented with a cheerful grin, and she nodded a small confirmation.

"I'm Dean, this is Sam and Elena" he continued, nodding towards his siblings "We're rangers with the park service. Ranger Wilkinson sent us over. We wanted to ask you some questions about your brother Tommy."

Lena saw Haley's eyes brighten slightly at the mention of her brother, and Lena felt a stab of guilt over using the girl's worry to their advantage. She knew how pissed she would be if she found someone was doing that to her. However, Haley's eyes were still guarded and she looked over the three of them warily.

"Let me see some ID." She demanded. Lena couldn't blame her. In their jeans and leather jackets, they didn't exactly look like park rangers.

Dean pulled out his fake id and flicked it open for Haley to see with a confident grin "Here ya go."

Haley narrowed her eyes at the id, clearly inspecting it intently, and Lena could feel the odds stacking against them. She had a feeling that this hunt wasn't going to be straight-forward or easy.

Haley looked for a long minute before seeming content and letting them in.

"That yours?" She asked, looking at the impala.

Dean beamed proudly "Yeah."

Haley nodded "Nice car."

"So if Tommy's not due back for a while, how do you know something's wrong?" Sam asked, straight to the point, clearly still not in a very friendly, sociable mood as they followed Haley into the house.

"He checks in everyday by cell." She explained "He emails photos, stupid little videos, but we haven't heard anything in over three days now."

Sam shrugged "Well, maybe he can't get cell reception."

Lena knew that Sam was simply testing the water, trying to determine whether they were actually dealing with something that fell under their line of work. She knew that his pain and guilt over Jess had made Sam less considerate than he had been, but there was no need to be so cold about it.

"He's got a satellite phone too." Haley told him simply.

Dean began to wonder around, searching for signs of anything that may have made Tommy more likely to be targeted by something supernatural.

"Could it be he's just having fun and forgot to check in?" he suggested casually.

"He wouldn't do that." Snapped a boy, around Lena's age, who was sitting at the table. Dean, Sam and Lena honestly hadn't noticed him, and he'd made them jump.

"Haley sighed "Our parents are gone." She explained sadly "it's just my two brothers and me. We all keep pretty close tabs on each other." Haley finished, putting a comforting hand on her brother's shoulder.

Lena smiled. She knew what that was like. Boy, did she know.

"Can I see the pictures he sent you?" Sam asked, wondering if they could tell him more than Haley could spot.

"Yeah," Haley nodded, leading them over to her computer. Lena, Sam and Dean waited around while Haley clicked, curious to what the videos and pictures might show.

"That's Tommy." She pointed as the video came up. Lena looked at the still frame, noticing that Haley looked like her older brother. The video started, leaving the original image behind.

"Hey Haley," Tommy chimed happily "Day six. We're still out near Blackwater Ridge- we're fine, keeping safe, so don't worry. Talk to you tomorrow."  
Sam frowned and looked around at Lena, and she automatically knew that he had spotted _something_.

"Well, we'll find your brother," Dean promised firmly "We're heading out to Blackwater Ridge first thing."  
"Then maybe I'll see you there." Haley told him, determination etched into her dark features. Dean shot her a questioning glance, and she sighed, defeated "Look, I can't sit around here anymore, so I hired a guide. I'm heading out in the morning, and I'm gonna find Tommy myself."

"I know how you feel." Lena told her, knowing that if it were her, if her life was normal enough for three days of no contact from her brothers to be worrying; she would do the exact same thing.

"Hey, you mind forwarding these to me?" Sam asked, still staring intently at the screen. Haley agreed, and within minutes, they were clambering back into the impala.

"Well, I need a drink." Dean muttered, tired after a long day. He looked across at Sam, slumped in his seat with his forehead pressed against the cool glass of the window, looking dejected and worn out.

"What about you? You fancy a few drinks?" Dean asked lightly. Sam shrugged; neither accepting nor declining the suggestion, but it was good enough for Dean. He sped off down the road as the sun dipped below the horizon, pulling the blinds down with it, leaving the starry night sky to blanket the world above them all.

They pulled up outside the first bar they came to, and Sam got out, acting autonomously, like the lights were on but no one was really home, moving on autopilot to get himself through each day, each hour, each minute. Lena went to get out of the car but stopped halfway. Dean noticed her halt in movement and turned to look at her.

"You alright Le?" He questioned, corrugating his forehead.

"Yeah," she replied slowly, "I think I'm going to use the phone before I come in."  
"Alright," Dean answered, slightly uneasily. "But don't stay out here too long, ok?"

Even without the possibility of something supernatural wandering around; Lena was still only sixteen, it was dark, they were at a bar, and Dean had no doubts that creeps would still be lurking. Dean even considered waiting outside the impala for her, but then decided against it. Lena would want her privacy and besides; she wasn't a baby anymore, and despite the fact that she was long and wiry, kind of on the small side of that scale, she was a good fighter. Hell, she had even taken him down once or twice, so Dean was confident that she could, and would, take care of herself.

Lena gave a nod and Dean got out, following after Sam's impatient strides to the door. Lena watched as they entered the bar. She quickly leaned over the front seat and locked the doors before doing the same in the back. Though she didn't like to admit it, she'd had the same thought process as Dean. She pulled the knife from her waistband and her phone from her pocket, one in each hand, and felt slightly better. She placed the knife on the seat next to her, ready to grab at a moment's notice, and raked a hand through her hair before dialling a familiar number.

Lena listened to the dialling tone for a while, and she almost hung up before she heard a thick, sleep-filled voice on the other end.

"Hello?" Taylor answered groggily.

"You're asleep already?" Lena asked, not exactly sure how she should greet her best friend after almost two weeks without speaking. "It's not even nine."

"Yeah, well, some of us have class in the morning." Taylor replied, the edges of a smile playing into her words. Through the phone, Lena could hear the shift of Taylor's mattress, and she could perfectly picture friend's petite, streamline, dancer's body pull itself into a seated position. Man, she missed her friends.

"Oh yeah." Lena joked playfully. She really couldn't understand why she'd been nervous about making the call in the first place. It might have been the fact that everything seemed more complicated than they had when she'd left. Not that it had been simple before.

"How's California?" Tay asked, breaking through Lena's fogged brain, making her remember that she was on the phone to someone who had no clue what she was doing, what she knew about, so Lena didn't have the luxury of being able to unload her worries onto her friend the way Taylor could to her.

"Actually," Lena sighed "I'm not in California anymore. I'm in Colorado."

"Oh," Taylor said, clearly surprised "Things aren't going the way you'd planned with your dad?"

"No, but we're getting there." She lied, stumbling over the words, her tongue feeling thick and clumsy with guilt over the slight fabrication.

Lena stayed silent for a dragging minute longer than was comfortable on the phone, and she could hear the quiet concern in Taylor's voice when she next spoke.

"Are you alright Elena?" she asked softly.

"Yeah, I just..." _Just_ what? _Just _might be hunting something that most peopledon't even consider the possibility of being real? _Just _spent the previous night and most of the day driving across the country to look for their dad, who may or may not still be there, or may not even be alive anymore, guided by some coordinates in a book filled with apparent nonsense to the untrained eye? _Just _couldn't sleep properly from having nightmares of her brother's girlfriend dying in a fiery attack, caused by something she would have known nothing about? Though, she couldn't complain about the last one really, because she knew that she'd keep her nightmares, and a hundred times worse, if it meant that Sammy would be free to at least sleep the night away uninterrupted. Lena knew that she never could, or would ever dream of telling Taylor any of this, so she finally finished "...it's been a long day."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Taylor asked tentatively, but Lena kind of wished she hadn't because, yes, she wanted to, but she couldn't.

Lena sighed "Not really. But come on, what's going on with you guys? Tell me everything."

As she listened to the casual, normal, wonderful, perfectly ordinary day-to-day goings on of her friends, Lena had to fight not to cry. It wasn't that she hadn't seen them in two weeks- she'd gone longer, though never without at least texting- it was that she didn't know when she'd see them _again._ She longed for their innocent ignorance, to not know about the things that go bump in the night, the things that could rip them apart with a single look.

Lena could feel her two worlds meshing as her thoughts combined, so she made an effort to concentrate on the sound of Taylor's voice.

"Listen Tay," she suddenly blurted, unsure of how much longer her voice and resolve would remain steady "you sound exhausted, and I have to make sure my brothers aren't doing something stupid, ok?"

"Umm, sure, alright." Taylor replied, taken aback slightly by being so off-handishly interrupted.

"I'll speak to you soon." Lena promised, though she wasn't entirely sure when 'soon' was going to be.

"Elena?"

"Yeah?" Lena answered shakily, because she was so close- so _damn_ close- and she didn't want to cry on the phone, didn't want Taylor to know she had anything to cry over.

"Stay safe."

_She doesn't know. She doesn't know. She doesn't know._

Lena let out a long, unsteady breath. She didn't talk. She wasn't sure she could. She simply let out a small agreeing sound before hanging up, just in time to hide an angry sob that roared through the silence in the car.

But just as abruptly as the urge to breakdown was there, it was gone again as Lena reigned herself in. She didn't even know what was wrong. All she knew was that she had a tight knot in the pit of her stomach that she couldn't explain away, that refused to calm or loosen. She just couldn't shake the feeling that things were going to go wrong, that they were wasting their time and efforts on something that was probably going to go belly-up, sooner or later. She didn't know how, or why or when, so there was nothing she could do about it but just carry on and hope that she was wrong. Things were bad enough already, without getting any worse.

Lena roughly wiped her face with the sleeve of her shirt, tucked her knife back into her pants but left her phone on the seat, as if it had anything to do with anything, before unlocking the doors and getting out. She strode confidently inside the bar and quickly spotted her brothers. She set her face in a quiet, steely resolve in hopes of squelching her uneasy feelings with an air of casual bravado.

"So, Blackwater Ridge doesn't get a lot of traffic, local campers mostly." Sam was saying as Lena approached and pulled up a chair at their table "but still, this past April, two hikers went missing out there. They were never found."

Sam and Lena didn't even realise that Dean wasn't really listening until he didn't answer. Dean was looking intently at his sister, searching for cracks in the mask she had so obviously plastered onto her face.

"Are you alright?" He asked her, his eyes never leaving hers.

She furrowed her brow and looked incredulously at him "Yeah," she scoffed, feeling both Sam and Dean's eyes on her "Why wouldn't I be?"

"No reason," Dean shrugged. He knew there was something bothering her, he had always known when there was, even when they were younger, but he couldn't put his finger on it, so he turned back to Sam "Any before that?"

"Yeah," Sam replied, returning his gaze to the laptop screen in front of him "In 1982, eight different people all vanished in the same year. Authorities said it was a grizzly attack. And again in 1959, and again before that in 1936."

"Every twenty three years." Lena muttered, working it out in her head.

"Just like clockwork." Sam finished, confirming her calculation. "Ok, watch this," he continued, turning the computer towards Dean and Lena "Here's a clincher. I downloaded that guy- Tommy's- video to the laptop. Check this out." He clicked through a few frames from the video, but Lena didn't see anything.

"Do it again." Dean demanded, so Lena guessed that her brother had noticed something.

"Wait, wait, wait." She muttered darkly, reluctantly pulling her glasses from her pocket and slipping them on her face. She hated wearing them, and would avoid them at all costs, but she wasn't going to let herself get behind on the case. No way.

Sam flipped through the images again, and Lena just about saw a shadow moving behind Tommy's head, but it was hard to tell exactly what it was making it.

"That's three frames" Sam explained "That's a fraction of a second. Whatever that thing is; it can move."

Dean flung his hand out and hit Sam in the arm "Told ya something weird was going on." He smirked.

"Yeah," Sam scoffed and rolled his eyes "I got one more thing. In '59, one camper survived this supposed grizzly attack. Just a kid. Barely crawled out of the woods alive."

"Is there a name" Dean asked, but by the smile on Sam's face, he could tell that there was.

Mr Shaw was clearly flustered as he led Dean, Sam and Lena through to his dark, dingy living room. He'd been surprised when they'd appeared at the door, but he'd let them in anyway, apparently accepting their fake ids as legit.

"Look rangers," he started "I don't know why you're asking me about this. It's public record. I was a kid. My parents got mauled by a..."

"Grizzly?" Sam finished for him "That's what attacked them?"

Mr Shaw hesitantly nodded, as if he doubted what he'd always been led to believe he had seen.

"The other people that went missing that year" Dean started "Those were bear attacks too? What about all the people that went missing this year? Same thing?"

The anxiousness on the man's face was all too evident. He looked away, nervously inspecting his feet, and Dean continued, trying to ease out some answers.

"If we knew what we were dealing with, we might be able to stop it."

"I seriously doubt that." Mr Shaw grumbled sceptically. "Anyways, I don't see what difference it would make. You wouldn't believe me. Nobody ever did."

"Mr Shaw," Sam said softly, stepping forwards, setting himself down on the coffee table in front of the armchair that Mr Shaw had slumped into "What did you see?"

"Nothing," the older man replied simply "it moved too fast to see. It hid too well. I heard it though, a roar, like no man or animal I ever heard."

"It came at night?" Sam enquired, and Mr Shaw nodded in confirmation "Got inside your tent?"

"It got inside our _cabin_." Mr Shaw replied "I was sleeping in front of the fireplace when it came in. It didn't smash a window, or break the door. It unlocked it. Do you know of a bear that could do that? I didn't even wake up 'til I heard my parents screaming."

Lena grimaced. She could see Mr Shaw getting upset, but they were finally achieving something, and they couldn't afford to stop yet.

"Why it left me alive...been asking myself that ever since." He continued sadly "Did leave me this though," Mr Shaw opened up his shirt, revealing three long, jagged scars running down his chest, looking like something- something _huge_- had tried to claw its way into his body. But it wasn't a bear. That much was certain. "There's something evil in those woods." He finished "It was some sort of demon."

Lena glanced across at her brothers, and Dean cleared his throat loudly. "Thank you for your time." He grinned, and they all left. As soon as the door closed, the smile faded from his face, replaced by confusion.

"Spirits and demons don't have to unlock doors. If they want inside they just go through the walls." He remarked.

"So it's probably something else, something corporeal." Sam stated, matter-of-factly.

"Corporeal?" Dean chuckled, "Excuse me Professor."

"Shut up." Sam snapped with a smirk "So, what do you think?"

"The claws, the speed that it moves; could be a skin-walker, maybe a black dog." Lena suggested a little rustily, drawing on information that she hadn't had to recall for a while, things she had let ebb out of her brain while she was at school, despite the fact that their father had drilled it into her mind from a young age.

"Whatever we're talking about, we're talking about a creature, and it's _corporeal_" Dean continued with a slightly mocking sideways grin at Sam "Which means we can kill it."

By this point, they had reached the impala, and Dean opened the trunk, propping it up with a shotgun. He started loading up other weapons, and Lena followed suit, but Sam remained behind them, his arms folded across his chest defiantly.

"We cannot let that Haley girl go out there." He told their backs firmly

"Oh yeah?" Dean scoffed "What are we gonna tell her? That she can't go into the woods because of a big scary monster?"

"Yeah." Sam replied, staring at them as if it were obvious.

"Her brother's missing, Sam." Lena appealed to him, but she didn't say anything else, because to her, it was the only explanation needed. Clearly, though, by the look on Sam's face still, he needed a little more convincing.

"She's not gonna just sit this out. Now, we go with her, we protect her, and we keep our eyes peeled for our fuzzy predator friend." Dean told him, thinking that he'd left no room for Sam to argue, but apparently Sam thought differently.

"Finding Dad's not enough?" He demanded, slamming the trunk closed. "Now we've got to babysit too?"

Sam spun around to see his brother and sister giving him expectant glares, with their eyebrows raised at him. If Sam had been in a better mood, he would have noticed that Lena looked like a younger, female Dean. "What?" He demanded angrily when their expressions didn't cease.

Dean shrugged, relenting "Nothing."

Lena, however, wasn't quite so satisfied and she continued to look intently at her brother, even after Dean had thrown his duffel bag at Sam and got into the car.

"What's going on in your melon Samson?" she asked quietly in a low, serious tone.

"Get in the car," Sam snapped irritably when he couldn't think of anything else to say "and stop asking stupid questions."


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N: Howdy :)**_

_**I know its been a little bit longer this time since I last posted and I'm sorry :( I'm determined to follow a little system I have to keep myself with a few chapters backlogue so that if I don't have as much time to write I'll still have something to post, but I'm having a little bit of trouble with the chapters for 'Dead in the water'. I think I've gotten back into the swing of it now anyway...**_

_**As my best friend painfully reminded me today, it's only three months until my January exams, and I need to do well in them to get into Uni next year, so my new plan: At the moment, with the exception of this week, I've posted about two chapters a week (I think haha) so once the Wendigo chapters, I'm only going to post ONE chapter a week, regardless of how much I write, so that hopefully I'll build up more chapters to keep behind to post while I'm sitting my exams, because with all the revision and stuff, I won't have even half as much free time to write, as much as I'd like to haha. So yeah, just a heads up :)**_

_**Disclaimer: Nothing you recognise is mine :(**_

_**Note: I just want to say a HUMUNGOUS thank you to wondertogondor! Without her, this story would have probably been in the toilet by now, and if it wasn't for her amazing advice before she'd even read the first chapter, I probably wouldn't have bothered with even a second chapter. Lot of virtual love! Everyone go and check out her story 'The Family Winchester' and leave a review because it's incredible! **_

_**Right, I think that's enough out of me! Enjoy! Don't forget to R+R because I love them, and they are lots of help**_

_**Cheers,**_

_**xoloveJBox**_

* * *

_**Chapter Five- Wendigo- part 2**_

The next morning Sam, who seemed to be in a marginally better mood, dragged Lena from her bed at an ungodly hour. She stumbled groggily into the bathroom, and by the time she emerged again after a scalding shower, she was just about awake enough to function. The three of them got ready in companionable silence, and they made their way back over to the visitors centre. They parked behind it, just where the woods started, and they were faced with Haley, her younger brother Ben, and another man arguing.

"I'll tell you again," the other man told Haley firmly "I don't think Ben should come."

Haley sighed. Clearly it wasn't the first time she had heard it that morning "Roy."

"Look, you're paying me good money to keep everybody safe," Roy stated "I think Ben's safest at home."

"You guys got room for three more?" Dean asked, interrupting them before more of an argument broke out as they got out of the car.

"Wait, you want to come with us?" Haley asked, clearly surprised.

"Who are these guys?" Roy asked, inspecting the three siblings sceptically.

"Apparently, this is all the park service could muster up for search and rescue." Dean chimed cheerfully, though the idea of what he was saying was far from it.

"You're rangers?" Roy exclaimed in disbelief, looking incredulously at them.

"That's right." Dean grinned.

"Great," Roy muttered darkly as he wiped a hand over his face "I try and get rid of one kid, and end up with two."

"Hey!" Lena protested, taking a step forward to argue, but Sam yanked her back and glared at her to be quiet.

"And you're hiking out in biker boots and jeans?" Haley asked, her eyes wondering over Dean's clothes, though Lena and Sam were dressed similarly too.

"Well sweetheart," Dean smirked as he passed her "I don't do shorts."

Roy stepped up to Dean, squaring off his chest, but Dean's expression remained cool an unimpressed.

"What? You think this is funny?" Roy barked "It's a dangerous backcountry out there. Her brother might be hurt."

"Believe me; I know how dangerous this could be." Dean remarked seriously "We just wanna help her find her brother, that's all."

Roy gave a small nod, seeming content with Dean's response as he cast another scowling glance over Sam and Lena.

The oddball group started walking, led determinedly by Haley and Ben, finishing with a still-half-asleep Sam and Lena.

"Roy," Dean started, feigning casualness "You said you did a little hunting."

"Roy scoffed, clearly thinking that he was the expert amongst them. "Yeah, more than a little."

"What kind of furry critters do you hunt?" Lena questioned. She wasn't against hunting. She had done her fair share of it, but everything she had killed had been trying to kill her first. It had never been recreational.

"Mostly buck," Roy replied with a casual shrug "Sometimes bear."

"Tell me," Dean continued "Bambi or Yogi ever hunt you back?"

Roy stopped abruptly and grabbed Dean. Lena froze, taken aback by the sudden confrontation, and Sam took a step forward defensively.

"What'cha doing Roy?" Dean asked darkly. Roy jabbed a stick into the ground where Dean's next step should have been. A sharp clang sent leaves shooting across, revealing a jagged metal clasp on the ground.

"You should watch where you're stepping...ranger." Roy added with a suspicious glance.

"It's a bear trap." Dean told Lena with a false chuckle, as if he really knew that it had been there.

"Wow," Lena sighed sarcastically "You're observant."

Haley hurried to catch up with Dean, and Lena saw the stormy expression on the woman's face.

"You didn't pack any provisions." She hissed venomously "You guys are carrying a _duffel_ bag. You're not rangers!" Haley grabbed his arm angrily to force his attention. "So who the hell are you?"

Ben walked past, momentarily stealing Haley's attention for long enough for Sam and Lena to cast a glance at Dean. He nodded for them to carry on, and watched them go for a moment before turning back to Haley.

"Sam and I are brothers, and Lena is our sister" he explained quietly, looking her directly in the eyes to make sure she knew that he was telling the truth. "And we're looking for our father. He might be here, we don't know. I just figured that you and me, we're in the same boat."

"Why didn't you just tell me that from the start?"

"I'm telling you now." Dean appealed "'sides, it's probably the most honest I've ever been with a woman. Ever. So, we ok?"

Haley paused, and Dean could see the irritated empathy in her eyes.

"Yeah," she sighed "ok."

Dean grinned "And what do you mean I didn't pack provisions?" he asked jokingly as he pulled out a bag of peanut M&Ms.

Convinced that she would give away their covers even more if she spoke, Lena stayed silent, and nobody said much more as they hiked.

"This is it," Roy finally announced a few hours later "Blackwater Ridge."

"What coordinates do we have?" Sam questioned, and Roy pulled out his GPS.

"Thirty-five and minus one eleven." He replied, snapping Lena and Dean's attention into place. Lena recognised them immediately as the coordinates in their Dad's journal. She had spent hours staring at them, burning them into her memory, in the hopes that their meanings would become clearer.

The three Winchesters stood together, vigilantly searching the area around them for signs the others wouldn't take note of,

"You hear that?" Dean asked quietly.

"Yeah," Sam mumbled "Not even crickets."

"Well," Lena sighed, her eyes travelling upwards, scanning the treetops instinctively. "That's creepy."

Roy stashed his GPS back into his pocket and turned to glance at everyone else, unaware of the defensive manner Dean, Sam and Lena had adopted.

"I'm gonna take a look around." Roy announced, turning to leave.

Sam put out a hand to stop him "You shouldn't go off by yourself."

"That's sweet," Roy replied with a mocking smile as he pushed his way through Sam and Dean, waving his gun around like a toy "Don't worry about me."

"Alright, everybody stays together," Dean ordered firmly "Let's go."

They searched the area uneventfully for a while, and Sam, Dean, Lena, Ben and Haley were looking near a large rock when they heard Roy call.

"Haley!" He hollered "Over here!"

Haley took off at a run, closely followed by everyone else, but they soon came to a grinding halt when they saw the reason for Roy calling to them.

"Oh my God." Haley breathed, shocked by the sight in front of them. It _was_ a campsite, but the tents were all torn open, strewn around and covered in blood, mixed with all of the supplies, which had been scattered haphazardly over the area.

"Looks like a grizzly." Roy muttered, and Lena refrained from rolling her eyes. Poor, ignorant soul.

Despite the dead silence and stifling stillness, Haley still remained hopeful.

"Tommy?" She queried to the vacant space. She slid her backpack from her shoulders and moved closer to the wreckage.

"Tommy!" She suddenly screamed, her voice filled with evident desperation. Sam stepped forwards quickly to fall in line with her.

"Shh."

"Tommy!" She yelled again, making Sam cringe.

"Shhhhh!" he repeated, longer and more emphasised the second time, desperate to make her listen.

"Why?" She exclaimed in response, and Lena could see that with the new development on her brother, whether it be good or bad, all logic and precaution had been thrown from Haley's mind. Lena couldn't find it in herself to blame the other woman; she knew she would be the same if it were Sam or Dean.

"Something might be out there." Sam warned cryptically. Lena saw Roy roll his eyes at Sam's words, but she didn't have time to do more than scowl darkly at him before Dean's voice filtered to her ears.

"Sam! Lena!"

Lena followed Sam over to where Dean was crouched, and they sunk down to see what he was looking at.

"The bodies were dragged from the campsite," He explained covertly, pointing to the ground in front of him "But here, the tracks just vanish. That's weird."

Lena nodded in agreement and the three stood up, surveying the area once again.

"I'll tell you what," Dean continued solemnly "that's no skin-walker or black dog."

They went back to the campsite, and Saw Haley picking through the wreckage. She retrieved a cell phone, caked in blood, and from the pained sob that erupted from her chest, Lena guessed that it was Tommy's. With a soft, sympathetic look on his face, Dean went and sat next to her.

"Hey," he murmured gently "he could still be alive."

Haley shot Dean a sceptical, watery look that told him that she wanted to believe it was true, but doubted that it was.

Before Dean could make another attempt at comforting the woman, an unfamiliar voice ripped through the air, grabbing their attention with brute, unapologetic force.

"Help! Help!" it screamed desperately.

They all jumped into action, Roy leading the way, as they ran to the aid of the shouter.

"Help! Somebody! The voice pleaded again, but when they reached the place where they all thought it had originated from, they found no one.

"It seemed like it was coming from around here, didn't it?" Haley asked, and they listened again, but heard nothing.

"Everybody back to camp." Sam ordered, leaving no room for argument or discussion. They ran back, fuelled by a mixture of fear and confusion. When they arrived back, the camp was emptied of the supplies they had bought with them.

"Our packs!" Haley exclaimed dismally, looking around in shock.

"So much for my GPS and my satellite phone." Roy sighed.

"What the hell is going on?" Haley cried, looking frantically to Dean, in whom she seemed to have formed a companionable ally.

"It's smart," Sam muttered definitively "It wants to cut us off so we can't call for help."

"You mean someone- some _nut-job_- out there just stole all our gear?" Roy exclaimed erratically.

Sam ignored him and turned to Dean.

"I need to speak with you." He told him simply "In private."

Dean gave a small nod, wondering what Sam was thinking and took a step to the side. Lena moved to go with them, but Sam shot her a glance that told her to stay where she was. She interpreted it quickly as 'stay with them'. She didn't like it, but she didn't see any other option, not really, so she decided to do as she was told until they knew more. She watched as they moved to the sides and started talking amongst themselves, but she couldn't hear what they were saying.

Sam waited until they were a safe distance away from the group before muttering to Dean.

"Good. Let me see Dad's journal." He requested. Dean wordlessly handed it over, and watched as Sam flipped through, stopping on one particular page.

"Alright, check that out."

Sam pointed to a drawing on the page, and Dean looked at him sceptically.

"Oh come on" Dean sighed "Wendigos are in the Minnesota woods or, or Northern Michigan. I've never even heard of one this far west."

"Think about it Dean," Sam appealed "The claws, the way it can mimic a human voice."

Dean thought about it and sighed again, this time in defeat.

"Great" he muttered, reaching into his jacket and pulling out his pistol "Well then, this is useless."

Sam handed his brother back the journal that was now their closet link to anything they knew or wanted to know.

"We need to get these people to safety." He told his brother seriously, and Dean was more than ready to agree. He followed Sam back over to the camp and let his younger brother take charge, because he was pretty sure that keeping occupied was the only thing that was keeping Sam from going completely insane.

"Alright, listen up," Sam boomed when he came back over, and Lena shot up from the rock she had perched on the edge of "It's time to go. Things have gotten...more complicated."

"What?" Haley exclaimed, confusion and defiance etched into her dark features. Lena furrowed her brow, equally as perplexed, and strode over to Dean.

"What's going on?" She asked him quietly.

"We think it's a Wendigo." Dean muttered simply, keeping his eyes on the group in front of him.

"But Wendigos only-" Lena began, about to give the same argument as Dean had given, so he cut her off.

"I know."

"Kid, don't worry," Roy laughed bitterly "Whatever's out there, I think I can handle it."

"It's not me I'm worried about." Sam scoffed "If you shoot this thing, you're just gonna make it mad. We need to leave. Now."

"One; you're talking nonsense. Two; you're in no position to give anybody orders." Roy growled darkly.

"Relax." Dean warned, taking a step forward.

"We should never have let you come out here in the first place, alright?" Sam replied, ignoring his brother "I'm trying to protect you."

Lena had to wonder then if there was just something about Winchesters that made people-particularly Roy- want to fight them, because he stepped up to Sam, their chests and faces only centimetres apart, but Sam stood his ground, not moving an inch.

"_You_ protect _me_?" Roy spat "I was hunting these woods when your mommy was still kissing you goodnight."

"Yeah?" Sam sneered "It's a damn near perfect hunter. It's smarter than you, and it's gonna hunt you down and eat you alive unless we get your _stupid_ sorry ass out of here."

Roy laughed in Sam's face "You know you're crazy, right?"

Even from where she stood with Ben on the other side of the campsite, Lena could feel the irritation radiating from Sam's every pore, so it didn't really surprise her when Sam seemed to lose his cool.

"Yeah? You ever hunt a Wen-" he started angrily, but Dean pushed him to make his little brother stop. It certainly wasn't going to help the already out of hand situation for Sam to start sprouting off notions of vastly unheard of creatures.

"Roy!" Haley exclaimed, taken aback by the sudden burst of unhelpful confrontation.

"Chill out." Dean warned, and Lena pulled Sam a step backwards, trying to diffuse the tension that the testosterone had caused.

"Stop. Stop it. Everybody just stop." Haley yelled "Look, Tommy might still be alive, and I'm not leaving here without him." She finished firmly, and while Lena couldn't condone the stupidity of Haley's refusal to listen, she had to admire the steely determination that was glittering in the woman's eyes.

"It's getting late." Dean sighed after a long minute of silence "This thing is a good hunter in the day, but an unbelievable hunter at night. We'll never beat it, not in the dark. We need to settle in and protect ourselves."

Haley simply stared "How?"

Dean rubbed a hand over his face, taking a second to think.

"Elena" he started "You still remember those anasazi symbols Dad taught you?"

"Yes sir." She answered confidently.

"Good girl," he replied, shooting her a wink as he tossed her a thick twig from the ground "Start drawing 'em for me Princess, in a nice big circle." Lena nodded obediently, feeling better now that she had something solid to concentrate her energies on. As she started, she remembered the time her father had shown her the symbols, and, at the age of six, she had sat for hours, drawing and redrawing what she'd been told until she recreated masses of sheets, all as perfect and precise as the last. At that age, the drill hadn't seemed so tedious; she had enjoyed drawing, and liked to please her father. When she'd shown Sam, he hadn't seemed too impressed, but at twelve, he understood what they were, and what they were for, so he could think of nothing worse. Dean, however, had made a big fuss of her, telling her how she clever she was. He'd even rewarded her by letting her stay awake for an extra fifteen minutes after her usual bedtime, because their Dad had already left for a hunt, and at such a young age, fifteen minutes was like an eternity. She hadn't known then, couldn't have known, what the symbols were for, or that she would ever need them. She simply thought them to be pretty pictures on a page of little to no consequence.

Everything had been simpler then.

While she drew, Dean and Roy ventured gingerly into the trees to find firewood, while Sam, Haley and Ben worked on clearing a space for the fire and neatening the ruined tents in order to make room for themselves. Dean and Roy returned a little before the sun dipped behind the mass of treetops, and by the time darkness fell, they had a roaring fire, and Dean was helping Lena finish with the symbols, and Haley was poking at the fire with her little brother huddled to her side.

"One more time, that's-" she started uncertainly, looking down at the shapes Dean was tracing into the ground.

"Anasazi symbols," Dean told her again "It's for protection. The Wendigo can't cross over them."  
Roy laughed loudly behind them, and Dean rolled his eyes as he stood up.

"Nobody likes a sceptic Roy." He answered coolly, going over to where Lena was finishing up her last symbol.

"Nice job Le." He told her, and she looked up at him uncertainly.

"You want to check 'em?" she asked, looking down and inspecting her own work.

"Nah," Dean replied "I'm sure you did just fine."

"Dean, are you sure? I mean-"

"Lena," Dean interrupted "They look perfect to me."

Lena nodded slowly and stood up with a sigh, clearly not convinced of the accuracy of her own skills.

"Where's Sam?" She asked, and they both looked around until they spotted him right on the edge of the campsite, sitting alone, looking dejected. They shot each other a glance and crossed wordlessly over to him. Sam barely looked up as Dean took a seat next to him, and Lena sat opposite.

"You wanna tell us what's going on in that freaky head of yours?" Dean questioned before Sam had chance to avoid them and scurry off, something he'd managed to do quite a lot.

"Dean-" He started after a long, contemplative silence, trying to work out what to say to get out of having the conversation.

"No, you're not fine." Dean stated quickly, knowing exactly what his brother was going to say, because he'd heard it countless times before, on multiple occasions, because both Sam and Lena did it when they didn't want to talk about what was bothering them. He was pretty sure he did it too. It was like it was etched into their genes. "That much I know for sure. You're like a powder keg, man, it's not like you. I'm supposed to be the belligerent one, remember?"

Dean gave a light chuckle, in a feeble attempt to ease the mood slightly, but it didn't work. Not even a little bit.

"Dad's not here." Sam said slowly, as if he had to calculate and think about every word before he let it out "I mean that much we know for sure, right? He would have left us a message, a sign, right?"

Dean sighed "Yeah, you're probably right. Tell you the truth; I don't think Dad's ever been to Lost Creek."

Sam turned to Dean with a pleading expression "The let's get these people back to town and lets hit the road. Go find Dad. I mean, why are still even here?"

"This is why." He replied simply, moving over to sit next to Lena, facing his brother, with the leather bound journal in his hand.

"This book," he continued seriously, seeing the unconvinced looks on his brother and sister's faces. "This is Dad's single most valuable possession- everything he knows about _every_ evil thing is in here. And he's passed it on to us. I think he wants us to pick up where he left off. You know, saving people, hunting things. The family business."

Sam shook his head, running his hands over his face, clearly fighting some internal battle. "That makes no sense." He breathed "Why doesn't he just- call us? Why doesn't he- tell us what he wants, tell us where he is."

Lena scoffed "Because this is Dad. That would be way too easy."

"I don't know. But the way I see it, Dad's giving us a job to do, and I intend to do it."  
"Dean, no." Sam argued, his voice low as he tried to keep it under control, because his resolve was starting to crack, and his eyes were starting to water "I gotta find Dad. I gotta find Jessica's killer. It's the only thing I can think about."

"Ok, alright Sam, we'll find them, I promise" Dean assured him with a soft, comforting tone "Listen to me. You've got to prepare yourself. I mean, this search could take a while, and all that anger, you can't keep it burning over the long haul. It's gonna kill you. You gotta have patience, man."

Sam looked down at his hands in his lap for a second of distraction before looking back to Dean.

"How do you do it? How does Dad do it?" He questioned with a short, fake laugh.

"Well for one, them." Dean answered without hesitation. Sam and Lena looked over to where Haley and Ben were sat close to the fire, hand in hand, taking as much comfort as they could from each other's presence. Although they weren't quite so open about it, Lena knew that the three of them were doing the same thing, and, almost to prove the point, she leaned in a little closer to Dean.

"I mean, I figure our family's so screwed to hell, maybe we can help some others." Dean continued as Sam kept his gaze on the brother and sister who were not completely unlike themselves. "Makes things a little bit more bearable."

There were a few long, dragging seconds of silence as they contemplated their thoughts, each one not really wanting to trouble the others with the anarchy that lay there.

"I'll tell you what else helps." Dean added after a while.

Sam and Lena looked to him with expectant glances, and Dean grinned mischievously "Killing as many evil sons of bitches as I possibly can."


	6. Chapter 6

_**A/N: Hey all!**_

_**I know it's been a little while since I posted a chapter, but I'm struggling to get through Wendigo. I don't know why :s**_

_**Anyway, second episode=done! Wahoo!**_

_**I promise I won't babble for too long today haha**_

_**Disclaimer: Supernatural=not mine. End of lol**_

_**Please R+R! I'd love some more feedback, suggestions/ideas/criticisms...anything!**_

_**love lots, **_

_**xoloveJBox**_

* * *

_**Chapter Six- Wendigo- Part 3.**_

The small smile on Sam's face didn't last long.

"Help me! Please!" Screamed the increasingly familiar voice of the Wendigo, and the three of them shot to their feet.

"Help!" it called again, closer, and Dean pulled out his gun, while Lena and Sam yanked out their flashlights and shone them into the trees.

"He's trying to draw us out." Dean said quietly, hearing Haley's heavy breathing behind him "Just stay cool, stay put."

"Inside the magic circle?" Roy muttered, but he was ignored. They were slightly too _preoccupied_ to take notice of him anymore.

"Help! Help me!" The voice was snatched away by an animalistic growl, and Roy instinctively aimed his gun at the invisible sound.

"Ok, that's no grizzly." He commented, and Lena refrained from twisting around and punching him in the jaw.

"You think?" she snapped irritably instead, taking a short second to glare darkly at him.

"It's ok." Haley promised her brother in an attempt to be comforting in the middle of the protective circle that Dean, Sam, Lena and Roy were forming around them "You'll be alright, I promise."

Suddenly, something rushed past the trees directly next to them, so close that they could almost feel the air on their faces as it moved, and Haley shrieked.

"It's here." Sam muttered, as if they needed much confirmation. A tree ahead of them moved, and Roy let out a shot, but he had obviously missed, since the creature kept moving. He fired again, the bullet flaring through the air, and this time they heard the Wendigo screech.

"I hit it!" Roy exclaimed, following after his bullet to see what exactly he had hit.

"Roy, no!" Dean yelled as the older man disappeared into the bushes "Roy!"

Dean turned to Haley and Ben and barked "Don't move." Lena grabbed a branch from the ground, shoved one end in the flames and thrust it into Haley's hand to use as a weapon before trailing off after her brothers. She caught up to them quickly, and if he'd had a second more to think, Dean would have shot her a disapproving glance for being careless enough to run after them, but he was too focused on listening to Roy's voice, trying to work out where he was.

"It's over here!" Roy called triumphantly "It's in the tree!"

"Roy!" Dean yelled again as he moved through the trees, Sam and Lena following him with their flashlights. They couldn't hear Roy anymore. In fact, there was barely the sound of trees rustling, and they knew that they were too late.

By the time the sun had come up the next morning, and Roy had been missing for hours, nobody was really sure what to think or do. Sam and Lena were sitting wordlessly against a hollow tree stump, and Sam was holding onto the journal, absent-mindedly playing with the lanyard attached to it, while Dean, Haley and Ben stayed amongst the trees.

"I don't..." Lena heard Haley start, clearly unsure of how to formulate her thoughts in a way that made sense, because nothing actually made sense. Not anymore. "I mean, these types of things, they aren't supposed to be real."

"I wish I could tell you different." Dean replied as he picked at the bark of a tree before coming over and crouched next to her.

"How do we know it's not out there watching us?"

"We don't." Dean replied, deadpan "But we're safe for now."

"How do you know about this stuff?" Haley asked, and she waited, looking at him intently, while Dean considered an answer.

"Kind of runs in the family."

Lena turned her head to Sam, and she could tell that he had heard Dean's response as well.

"Do you think they'll ever be a time when no one'll ask us that?" she murmured softly "When we'll meet people the normal way, and not because of something supernatural, so they won't even know about any of it?"

Sam returned her look and sighed "Probably not." Lena nodded since he had given her the answer she had expected, and Sam gave her a small smile "Come on."

They got up, brushed themselves off and wondered over to the campsite together.

"Hey," Sam greeted, and Haley shot up, looking at him expectantly "So, we've got half a chance in the daylight. And I for one want to kill this evil son of a bitch."

Dean turned, slightly surprised by his brother's gung-ho attitude, but gave a small smile all the same.

"Well, hell, you know I'm in."

Sam nodded and pulled out the journal, flicking it open to the same page he had read and reread so many times since they had worked out what they were up against, and held it out for Haley and Ben to see.

"'Wendigo' is a Cree Indian word." Sam explained "It means 'evil that devours'"

"They're hundreds of years old," Lena continued "Each one was once a man. Sometimes an Indian or other times a frontiersman, or a miner or hunter."

Haley furrowed her brow "How does a man turn into one those things?"

Dean circled her slowly, bending down to retrieve some select items from the ground.

"Well, it's always the same." He started. "During some harsh winter a guy finds himself starving, cut off from supplies or help. Becomes a cannibal to survive, eating other members of his tribe or camp."

"Like the Donner party." Ben muttered, one of the only things he had said the entire time. Lena got the impression that he was more than a little overwhelmed by everything; she couldn't blame him, but she couldn't remember the last time she was surprised by things that she saw.

"Cultures all over the world believe that eating human flesh gives a person certain abilities; speed, strength, immortality." Sam told them, not even needing to refer to the book anymore. All his life he'd been conditioned to recall information with only a seconds notice, because any longer than that could be the difference between life and death.

"If you eat enough, over years, you become this less than human thing. You're always hungry." Dean finished, coming back to stand in front of Sam and Lena.

"So if that's true, how can Tommy still be alive?" Haley asked stiffly. Dean glanced back at Sam, who half-shrugged, half-nodded his silent reply.

"You're not going to like it," Dean warned her seriously, and Lena could see the defensive walls going up behind Haley's eyes to protect herself from whatever Dean was about to tell her.

"Tell me." She demanded firmly.

"More than anything, a Wendigo knows how to last long winters without food. It hibernates for years at a time, but when it's awake it keeps its victims alive. It, uh," Dean stumbled slightly over his words, trying to be honest without being cruel to Haley and Ben "it stores them, so it can feed whenever it wants. If your brother's alive, it's keeping him somewhere dark, hidden, and safe. We've gotta track it back there."

"And then how to we stop it?" Haley queried determinedly.

"Well guns are useless." Dean told her simply

"And so are knives." Lena added, secretly proud of herself for remembering. Sometimes everything merged into one, and it was hard to tell what killed what.

"Basically," Dean continued, holding up a can of lighter fluid, a beer bottle and a piece of white material that he'd managed to find around the campsite. "We gotta torch the sucker."

They didn't speak. Not a word passed between anyone's lips as they trudged through the branches and foliage. There was nothing to say. They were either on a rescue mission, or walking into their own deaths, but if Lena had to guess which one it was, she would have put her money on the latter. But then, she thought, that was a risk they took on every job, and it was one that she was strangely used to. Dean led ahead of them, Molotov cocktail in hand, ready to light if the Wendigo turned up. Haley followed vigilantly, and once again Sam and Lena were left to bring up the rear. Lena could see the bloody scratch marks on the trees and she could clearly see the path Dean was taking them across. Sam could see it too, and Lena noticed the cogs working in his head, could hear the thoughts whirring in his mind as he looked intently at the markings. He slowed up to inspect the wood, and Lena stayed with him, wondering what was going on in her brother's mind.

"Dean," he called softly, but loud enough to get his brother's attention.

"What is it?" Dean asked when he caught up to them. Lena and Dean followed Sam's gaze as he looked up at all the claw marks, seeing how perfectly spaced they were, evenly made and equally as manifested.

"You know I was thinking," Sam finally told them "those claw marks, so clear and distinct. They were almost _too_ easy to follow."

A low, guttural snarl filtered the air around them, and the three of them whipped around, but the Wendigo moved too fast for them to actually see it, other than the rustling of trees where it passed. Lena backed up and ended up standing next to Haley under a tree. Lena felt something hit her shoulder, like rain, but when she looked, she saw that the drop was too dark to be water. Haley had the same drops running down her coat, and Lena looked up, confusion etched onto her face.

"Move!" She yelled, shoving Haley as she screamed, and Lena threw herself on the ground. In less time than it took to let out a breath, a huge, heavy bundle hit the ground where the two girls had been standing. Dean darted over protectively to Lena, and Sam went to Haley.

"You alright?" Dean asked her, and Lena nodded, winded so she couldn't speak, and she remained on the ground.

"You ok?" Sam asked Haley before turning to Dean "You got it?"

Dean went over to whatever had fallen from the tree and moved it over slightly, just enough for Lena to see that it was, or had been, Roy.

Dean sighed "His neck's broke."

More growling made them all jump, and Dean suddenly yanked Lena to her feet and pushed her in front of him.

"Ok, run, run run, go, go, go!" he yelled, propelling them all forwards. Somewhere along the way, Lena had ended up at the back of the group again, so when Ben tripped and landed on the ground, she almost landed on top of him. Sam noticed that the two youngest had stopped, and he hurried back to help Ben up, leaving Dean and Haley to go ahead of them even more.

"Come on, I gotcha, I gotcha." Sam promised Ben as he pulled the boy to his feet "Come on Elena." They started running again, but soon halted to a stop when they heard Haley scream, making their blood run cold. Suddenly, they were tearing through the trees, and Lena forgot about the lack of air in her lungs, since she hadn't really had much chance to get it back after almost being crushed by Roy's body, but she didn't care. She knew that Dean wouldn't have left Haley, and the Wendigo wouldn't have left Dean if he had found them both, and what else did Haley have to scream about?

"Haley?" Ben called as they reached the area his sister's screams had seemed to come from, but there was no one in sight.

"Dean!" Lena shouted hopefully, secretly wishing that Dean and Haley had in fact gotten separated, and that her brother was wondering around somewhere, looking for them. Sam took a few steps forwards and bent down to pick it up. Lena rushed over to him, to see what it was, and discovered that it was a piece of Dean's Molotov cocktail, unlit and smashed. Sam looked around him, the same kind of thoughts rushing through his mind as his sister's.

"Dean!" he yelled, louder than Lena, but he was only greeted by silence.

"Come on," Lena murmured firmly, "We need to find them."

"If it keeps its victims alive, why would it kill Roy?" Ben asked shakily as they started to move.

"Honestly?" Sam replied, "I think because Roy shot at it, pissed it off."

A speck of colour caught Ben's attention, and he crouched to inspect it .It was an M&M.

"They went this way!" he called excitedly. Sam and Lena hurried over, and Ben handed the candy into Sam's hand.

Sam gave a small chuckle "It's better than breadcrumbs" he commented.

"As annoying as he is, the guy's a friggin' genius." Lena grinned as Sam tossed the blue pebble.

They followed Dean's clever trail until they reached a run-down mine entrance that proclaimed 'WARNING! DANGER! DO NOT ENTER EXTREMELY TOXIC MATERIAL.' Sam shot a glance at Lena, and she nodded. It made sense; it was dark, secluded and well-hidden, even if someone was stupid enough to stumble so far into the woods. Knowing that Dean was somewhere inside, Lena didn't even hesitate before following Sam through the opening.

There was no light other than the beams coming from Sam and Lena's flashlights, and even they seemed feeble in terms of the immense darkness that threatened to swallow them. A whisper of a snarl echoed just ahead of them. Instinctively, the flashlights were flipped off, and Sam pulled Ben with them against an alcove in the wall. In the glow of the dwindling sunlight from outside, they caught a silhouette of the creature, just enough to see the magnitude and grotesque form of it. Ben let out a little whimper, and Sam quickly slapped a hand over the boy's mouth before the sound could escalate into a scream. They waited a few seconds before moving again, and the floorboards beneath them creaked uneasily. The slowed cautiously, and when they stopped, Lena felt the ground beneath her fall away, and she let out a cry as they tumbled through. She heard Sam groan as she pushed herself onto her elbows. Lena gasped when she looked around and realised that they had landed in a pile of bones, and Ben scrambled to his knees in shock when he saw that he had fell face-first onto the skulls.

"Hey, its ok, it's ok." Sam promised the boy firmly as he leapt back.

When Lena could hear more than the blood rushing around her head, she looked around, hoping to find a way out so that they could keep looking for Dean and Haley.

But then she saw them.

Dangling limply from the ceiling by their wrists, unconscious and bruised, but there.

"Sam," She gasped, smacking her brother's arm to get his attention before clambering over the two of them to get to Dean.

"Dean!" Sam called as he all but flew to his brother's side, next to Lena. Ben seemed to take an extra second to process what was going on, but he soon caught up to them.

"Haley, wake up" He pleaded, taking his sister's face in his hands.

"Dean!" Lena called as Sam shook their brother, and Dean's eyes slowly fluttered open, slightly out of focus, and Lena let out a small, relieved breath.

"Hey, you ok?" Sam asked him seriously as Dean took in everything around him, realising what was going on.

Dean winced and grunted "Yeah."

Lena whipped the knife from her pants and stood on the tips of her toes to reach the rope that held Dean to the ceiling, while Sam held Dean steady, so that he didn't fall when he was loose. However, because of how much she needed to stretch up, Lena found it difficult to do the job as quickly as she would have liked.

"Today would be nice Le," Dean groaned half-hearted, and Lena could hear the pain in his voice.

"You know," Lena answered with a short fake laugh "You're just lucky I'm so damn glad you're not dead right now, or I'd be punching you. Stop whining."

Finally, Lena felt the rope give, and Sam led Dean over to an empty spot and set him down while Lena worked on cutting Haley down. Even from where she stood, Lena could hear the pained noises and grunts coming from Dean, and she felt concern spike in her gut, but she did her best to ignore them at least until Haley was loose too.

"You sure you're ok?" Sam asked Dean.

Dean grimaced and huffed "Yeah. Yep. Where is he?"

"He's gone for now." Sam replied, and as Ben helped Haley along, Lena crossed quickly over to her brothers and crouched next to them. She wasn't paying much attention as Haley unravelled the rope from her wrists, but she noticed when the other girl got up and started walking. Lena followed Haley's steps with her eyes and saw what Haley had discovered; a man-presumably Tommy- hanging from the ceiling much like she had been. Sam got up and went with her and Ben, while Lena stayed with Dean, hovering protectively.

"Tommy..." Haley mumbled, tears rolling down her cheeks. She gently cupped her hand around her brother's face, but she jumped back and shrieked when Tommy's head jerked up from the sudden contact. When her brain caught up to the sight in front of her, Haley turned to Sam.

"Cut him down." She demanded, and Sam made easy work of the ropes, helping to set Tommy down on the floor with his brother and sister. Dean gave Lena a nudge and nodded to the side of her.

"What's that?" he asked, looking at a dark pile. Lena reached across and tentatively grabbed one, but she realised that they were the bags of stolen supplies. Hurriedly, she pulled one across and Dean grabbed it from her feverishly, rummaging around until he found what he was clearly looking for. He started trying to push himself to his feet, and Lena quickly guided him up.

"Check it out." Dean called, holding up what he had pulled from the bag, and even in the minimal light and obscuring shadows, Lena could see what they were.

"Flare guns." Sam grinned "Those'll work." Dean laughed and twirled the guns over his fingers. Ben and Haley pulled Tommy to his feet, each flinging one of his arms over their shoulder to support him, and Dean passed a flare gun to Sam. He held one out to Lena, but pulled it back as she reached out to take it.

"You sure you can handle one of these Princess?" he asked lightly.

Lena scoffed "Dude, I could've handled one of these when I was still in diapers." She replied sarcastically as she took it from him, but then she looked up and smiled lightly "I really am glad you're ok De."

He gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze "What do you say we get outta here, huh?"

"I'd say that is a very good idea." Lena replied, taking in the blood and bruises on Dean's face sadly.

"Me too," he agreed, "Let's go."

They moved swiftly and stealthily down the seemingly endless tunnels of the old mine. Lena kept the flare gun poised, the cool metal feeling strangely comforting between her hands. She could hear Tommy's heavy, laboured breathing behind her has Haley and Ben pulled him along, and Lena could feel the steady heat radiating from Sam, something familiar in an unfamiliar setting, and she forced herself to let that be enough. She looked across at the steely expressions on her brother's faces, and she wished that she could be as seemingly effortlessly brave as they were. Nothing seemed to faze them, and they took everything in their stride. She hated to think what her father would be telling her if he were there and knew the terrified thoughts that were swirling in her head. She suddenly regretted going away to school, because while she may have met all her best friends there, and discovered some notion of what it was like to be normal for a change, she knew that the time away had softened her, and she felt like she really could have used the hardened attitude she'd had before, drummed into her for a long while, even at the age of thirteen.

The menacing growl ahead of them snapped her from her thoughts, and she raised her gun instinctively with Sam.

"Looks like someone's home for supper." Dean muttered, his eyes scanning the area ahead of him.

"We'll never outrun it." Haley blurted dejectedly, casting a short glace at Tommy. Dean took a second to look at them before turning back to Sam and Lena.

"You guys thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah, I think so." Sam replied nonchalantly.

"Unfortunately" Lena agreed with a dark scowl "Don't do it." She warned, but Dean ignored her.

"Alright, listen to me," he ordered Haley, Ben and Tommy "Stay with Sam and Lena. They're gonna get you outta here."

"What are you gonna do?" Haley asked, furrowing her eyebrows slightly. Dean simply shot her a wink before turning and taking a few confident strides forward.

"Chow time you freaky bastard!" he yelled into the darkness "Yeah, that's right, bring it on baby! I taste _good."_

"Stupid son of a bitch." Lena muttered as she watched Dean disappear around a corner, his words swallowed up by the emptiness around them.

"Alright," Sam mumbled when Dean had had time to get a safe distance away "come on! Hurry!"

Lena looked nervously back to where Dean had disappeared, and she could still hear him taunting the creature.

"Hey! Hey, you want some white meat bitch! I'm right here!"

She followed dutifully behind Sam, and the low mutterings of the Wendigo somewhere close by unseen sent her heartbeat into her throat. Sam raised his gun for a minute, then slowly lowered it and turned solemnly to Lena. He eased the flare gun from her hand, checked it carefully and handed it back.

"Be careful," he warned it a low, calculated tone "You only have one shot, so don't waste it."

"What are you going to do Sam?" she asked, her eyes wide because she knew what Sam was going to do, she could read him like an open book, she just wanted him to prove her wrong.

"Get him outta here." He told her, ignoring her question with a nod towards Tommy.

"Sam, no." Lena pleaded desperately, her voice a little shaky.

"Go!" Sam demanded firmly, taking Lena's shoulders, turning her around and propelling her forwards. Lena cast an uneasy glance back at her brother, but she begrudgingly obeyed him with a mental note to punch him when they got out. _If _they got out.

With a surge of determination, Lena pushed forward, her finger ready on the trigger. She wasn't taking any chances.

"What about Sam and Dean?" Haley questioned as they neared what Lena hoped was the way out, because if it wasn't, she had no idea where she was going.

"I'm gonna go back for them, as soon as you guys are out." Lena replied through gritted teeth. Keeping her jaw locked was the only way she could think of stopping them from chattering from the adrenaline coursing through her veins. She carried on forwards, but the sound of a shot from a gun other than hers made her jump, and she spun around instinctively. However, instead of hearing the Wendigo, she heard the slapping of rubber-soled sneakers against the damp ground.

"Sam!" Lena called as a silhouette slowly materialised into her brother, and she allowed herself a brief sigh of relief.

"Come on, hurry, hurry, hurry." Sam mumbled, and they hurried as fast as they could manage, but they soon hit a dead end, with nowhere else to go.

"Get behind me." Sam told them all when he realised that they were in trouble. It was the only thing he could think to do as the ground below them trembled with the large, heavy footsteps of the Wendigo coming towards them. Lena guessed that Sam had tossed his gun once he'd used the shot, so she held hers up over Sam's arm that was spread protectively across her front.

The _thing_ came towards them. It had arms and legs, but that was the only resemblance to a human it had. It was almost hard to believe that the grotesquely over-stretched limbs and out-of-shape features had once been a man. Lena waited for it to come a little closer, to get a better shot, before she pulled the trigger back firmly.

Nothing happened.

Lena pulled it again. And again. And again. Still nothing, and the Wendigo continued to descend, taking it's time, and Lena swore that it was simply taunting them.

"Come on!" Lena screamed, smacking the side of the gun fruitlessly "Stupid gun!" She tried again, to no prevail, before simply lobbing it at the beast. It grunted slightly when it came into contact with its solid chest, but it didn't waver in its advances on them. It even let out a triumphant, almost mocking cry, because it clearly thought that it had won.

"Hey!" A gratefully familiar voice called, and the Wendigo spun around, taken by surprise, and revealed Dean behind it. Without hesitation, he shot it in its stomach, if that was still what it was called on such a non-human..._thing_. It was almost like slow motion as the flare went off, erupting flame and engulfing the Wendigo in a mass of heat and fire. When the Wendigo had been reduced to nothing more than a dwindling pile of ash on the floor, and they could all breathe again because they were still alive, Dean turned to the rest of them and smirked.

"Not bad, huh?"

Lena and Sam could do nothing but grin at him.

It was dark again by the time everything seemed to catch up to Lena. Ben and Sam were feeding the police officers some crap story about a bear- _'I mean this grizzly must have weighed eight hundred, nine hundred pounds'_- and Dean was talking to Haley. Lena was leaning casually against the comfortingly familiar metal frame of the car, still wrapping her head around the fact that they were alive. Despite everything, they'd made it out with little more than cuts and bruises. She couldn't make out a lot of what Dean and Haley were saying, but she saw her brother grin lasciviously, and Haley smirked despite herself.

"Must you cheapen the moment?" She asked, and Dean scoffed

"Yeah."

A paramedic approached them then, and Haley nodded something to him as Sam walked over to them with Ben. Haley leant over and kissed Dean gently on the cheek, and the girl looked around him and gave Lena a wave. Lena simply held up her hand in a lazy, acknowledging half-wave, fatigue and crashing adrenaline weighing heavily on her shoulders. From their various positions, the three Winchesters watched as Haley and Ben clambered into the back of the ambulance with their brother before Sam and Dean joined her on the hood of the impala. Dean silently wrapped an arm around Lena's shoulder and pulled her closer. Lena could feel the heat coming through his jacket, and she took a second to just let the fact that he was there wash over her.

"Man, I hate camping." Dean finally announced after what felt like an eternity of silence between them as they listened to the whining melody of the surrounding sirens.

"Me too." Sam replied vehemently.

"I think it's safe to say it goes on the list of things we should never do again." Lena concurred.

"Guys," Dean continued, a suddenly serious look on his face as he turned to his brother, then his sister "you know we're gonna find Dad, right?"

Lena nodded, because she really was sure that they would. Dean had promised her, and he _never_ broke his promises.

"Yeah, I know." Sam sighed, not sounding as entirely convinced "but in the meantime? I'm driving."

Dean hesitated, but then resigned and tossed Sam the keys.

"Dude!" Lena exclaimed "No fair! When do I get to drive?"

Dean laughed heartily as he clambered into the passenger side "Not tonight."

"That's not a real answer Dean." Lena pouted playfully.

"Yeah, well, it's the only one you're getting for now, and I'm the oldest, which means I'm always right." Dean argued, and they all closed their doors, almost entirely in sync.

"That's a sucky answer." Lena told him, deadpan, but she couldn't help the small smile that played its way onto her face when he glanced at her in the rear view mirror and shot her a wink.


	7. Chapter 7

_**A/N: Hey guys!**_

_**I'm sorry it took me so long to get this chapter up :/ I really struggled with writing all three of the chapters for this episode, but I finally finished and managed to make a start on Phantom Traveler as well, so that's good I guess haha :)**_

_**I promise I'm not going to babble for too long :)  
Disclaimer: Only Elena is mine. I'm just borrowing everyone else haha **_

_**Please please R+R! They are so colossially helpful to me, so I know what people like/don't like. I'll happily take suggestions and ideas, and I'm completely open for criticism because I firmly believe that the feedback in reviews helps me to better my writing skills (though, I'd only really appreciate constructive criticism...there's no need to be mean for the sake of it haha) If you don't want to leave a review, drop me a PM instead!**_

_****I've just added the first one in a bunch of pre-series one shots of a few moments of the three of them growing up! It's called 'Hands and Feet', and I'd really appreciate if people could check it out and let me know what you think!****_

_**OK, I'm gonna shut up now haha **_

_**Love,**_

_**xoloveJBox**_

* * *

_**Chapter Seven-Dead in the Water-part 1.**_

"Elena Mary, I won't tell you again." Dean warned, looking up from his newspaper in a pretty average Joe diner, to see his sister turning over yet another page of the book under her nose "Eat your breakfast."

"I did." She mumbled, only half listening, and she barely lifted her eyes to him, engaged in the words on the page as she pulled a pencil from behind her ear and scribbled notes in the margin.

"No, you pushed it around the plate and pretended to eat it, and then you picked up that damn book again."

Lena looked over the top of the dog-eared, yellow-paged paperback copy of 'The Great Gatsby' that she had picked up from a goodwill store. She furrowed her eyebrows, as if she was confused by the sight of Sam and Dean's empty plates and her full one. She took a gulp of her cooling tea in hopes of satisfying Dean's nagging, and went back to the page, pushing her black, square-rimmed glasses along the gentle curve of her nose defiantly. Dean sighed and reached over, snatched the book from her hands, which elicited loud protests from his sister, and closed it.

"What are you reading this for anyway?" Dean asked as he glanced, unimpressed, at the cover.

"AP English." She replied with a casual shrug.

"AP English? Since when do you take AP classes?"  
"Dude, I take five AP classes this year."

Dean stared in slight amazement for a minute. He could remember when the girl in front of him didn't know how to write her name or tie her shoelaces, but _he'd _taught her. How had he not noticed that she had gotten smart enough to take five AP classes in her sophomore year?

He smirked, waving his pen at her "You're going to save the world one day Elena Winchester, mark my words." Dean smiled warmly at her before his face turned slightly serious again, and he added "Now eat."

Lena grinned and relented, so she started to munch the corner of a piece of toast to keep Dean happy.

"Can I have my book back now?" she asked, batting her eyelashes slightly.

Dean simply shook his head "Not until you've cleaned that plate."

Lena looked for a second like she was going to argue, but Dean shot her _the look_ and she slumped dejectedly back in her chair.

"Where'd Samson go anyway?" She asked, noticing the empty chair beside her and the lack of her beloved Sasquatch.

"Uh, bathroom, I think." Dean replied "What's with all this 'Samson' crap anyway?"

Lena shrugged, feigning nonchalance "Because he's had so much crap lately that I don't even know how he keeps himself vertical, but he does. He's stronger than we give him credit for Dean, and 'Samson' sounds a lot tougher than 'Sammy', don't you think?"

"I guess." Dean replied, looking back to the newspaper dismissively, because it was _way _too early for profoundness.

"What are you even doing?" Lena asked him; she had noticed the way Dean had checked himself out of the conversation because it was verging on chick flick. Open book, dude, open book.

"I, my young friend, am working." Dean smirked, circling something with his pen and pushing it towards Lena for her to read.

"CARLTON, SOPHIE," The obituary screamed "The Carlton family is sad to announce the death of their daughter in a tragic swimming accident. Sophie Carlton, eighteen, was having her..."

Lena was distracted by a waitress coming over, wearing little more than underwear, with fake blonde hair dancing over her shoulders as she leaned over the table, showing off what her low cut top exposed.

"Can I get you anything else?" She purred.

Dean looked up and grinned goofily around the pen he had been chewing. Lena rolled her eyes and mentally praised Sam's impeccable timing as he approached just then.

"Just the check please." He told the waitress, Wendy, as he sat down.

"Ok," Wendy agreed, a slightly disappointed look on her face as she started to walk away. Dean dropped his head dejectedly for a second before looking back to Sam.

"You know Sam; we are allowed to have fun once in a while." Dean told his brother firmly, pointing at Wendy's retreating figure, and the fact that she was wearing _very _short shorts. "That's fun."

Sam shot Dean the _shut-up-I'm-in-a-bad-mood_ look, so Dean slid the paper over to him.

"Here, take a look at this," Dean started "I think I got one. Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin. Last week Sophie Carlton, eighteen, walks into the late, doesn't walk out. Authorities dragged the water. Nothing. Sophie Carlton is the third Lake Manitoc drowning this year; none of the other bodies were found either. They had a funeral two days ago."

Sam furrowed his eyebrows "A funeral?"  
"Yeah. It's weird, the buried an empty coffin," Dean continued "For, uh, closure or whatever."

"Closure? What closure?" Sam argued "People don't just disappear, Dean. Other people just stop looking for them."  
Lena mentally cringed. It was plainly obvious that the conversation was no longer about the body-less funeral. It was a lot closer to home, and Lena wished that Dean hadn't taken the book away so that she could hide behind it.

"What about this toast, huh?" Lena tried with fake cheeriness.

"Something you want to say to me?" Dean accused stiffly, ignoring Lena completely.

"The trail for Dad." Sam immediately responded. Clearly he had thought a lot about it. "It's getting colder every day."

"The tea's pretty good too." Lena commented as she took a loud mouthful, even though it was cold, once again trying to diffuse the tension before a full-blown argument broke out.

"Exactly." Dean snapped "So what are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know." Sam replied, his words sharp and punchy "Something. Anything."

"Guys..." Lena sighed, even though she knew they weren't listening.

"You know what? I'm sick of this attitude." Dean blurted "You don't think I want to find Dad as much as you do?"

"Guys."  
"Yeah, I know you do, it's just-"

"I'm the one that's been with him every single day for the past two years, while you've been away at college going to pep rallies." Dean answered, guilt-tripping Sam into silence "We will find Dad, but until then, we're going to kill everything bad between here and there. Ok?"  
"Well," Lena sighed "That was a heart-warming little bitch fest. Can we actually do some work now?"

Sam simply rolled his eyes, and Lena could tell they were in for another fun-filled day of Sam in a bad mood. Dean was too busy being distracted by Wendy walking past to notice.

"Alright," Sam sighed "Lake Manitoc." He looked at Dean and realised that his brother wasn't listening "Hey!"

"Huh?" Dean answered, snapping back to reality.

"How far?"

They left before Dean could lose his head again, and the impala thrummed satisfyingly underneath them. Lena reclined on the back seat casually, because once again she'd failed to call shot gun quick enough, but she made up for it by slipping off her shoes and putting her socked feet up on the back of the front seat between Sam and Dean's heads. Her brother's whined and complained, and Lena chuckled to herself.

"Untwist your panties ladies." She laughed.

"Dude, your feet stink." Dean told her with a grimace.

"No they don't!" Lena exclaimed, pretending to be offended. She was sure then that she even saw Sam crack a smile at their banter. It reminded her of slightly simpler times, when they had all been younger, and the way they would tease each other. The memories made Lena grin, but all too soon they passed a sign that announced 'Welcome to Lake Manitoc, WI."

At one point, they stopped to ask directions to the Carlton's house. Dean got out to ask an elderly man who was sat at the edge of the river they had to pass to get into town, but the man was uncooperative. Dean walked back over to the car, looking irritated and dejected.

"We'll have to find someone else guys, he won't spill. Says he 'don't trust no strangers'" He told Sam and Lena, putting on a really bad impression of the man in a deep, gruff voice and a strange interpretation of the accent. Lena rolled her eyes at her brother's lack of imagination, and clambered out of the back seat.

She shuffled over to the man, who had gone back to his fishing, and when she got closer to him, she started sniffling.

"Excuse me sir," she said shakily, and the man turned to her with surprised eyes "I was wondering if you could maybe tell me where I could find the Carlton residence?" Lena spoke with a perfected southern accent, just to add to the act, and when the man looked hesitant, she let her eyes water and flood over her cheeks as she continued "I am-_was-_ a friend of Sophie's, and I couldn't get here for the funeral, but I'd really like to pay my respects to her family."

Lena pulled a tissue from her pocket and dabbed at her face, but she let more tears fall freely until the man's face softened, and he slowly and kindly explained where she could find the house. When he was done, Lena gave him a wide, water smile and thanked him, and hurried back over to the car. She climbed in and wiped her face with her sleeves, and triumphant grin on her face as she relayed the information to Dean.

"Well, aren't you just a little Meryl Streep." Dean commented as he pulled away, and Lena glared at him.

"Seriously, dude, you couldn't have thought of a younger actress?" She asked, wiping away the last remnants of her impromptu performance.

Within minutes, Dean was rapping his knuckles on the Carlton's front door.

A man opened it, maybe between Sam and Dean in age, with dark hair and eyes. Lena mentally saw the picture of Sophie Carlton in her mind, and guessed that this must be her brother or something, because they looked very similar.

"Will Carlton?" Dean asked him.

"Yeah," the man replied "that's right."

"I'm agent Ford," he lied confidently, jabbing a thumb over at Sam, and then Lena "This is agent Hamil, and our intern, Miss Fisher. We're with the US Wildlife Service." Dean held up one of the many fake ids from the car and waited for Will to look it over. Will finally nodded, and he silently beaconed them through the house. They ended up out on the back porch, overlooking a huge lake with a small dock protruding a little way into it. A lone figure sat on a folding chair, looking out onto the water. Lena looked out a grimaced with a sharp intake of breath.

"What's the matter with you?" Dean asked, noting the twisted look on her face.

"I don't...there's just a lot of water." She mumbled uncomfortably, shoving her hands into her pockets self-consciously.

"You fight countless types of nastiness on a damn near daily basis, and you don't like a bit of water?" Sam chuckled, and Lena shot him deadly glares.

"Shut up Sam," she hissed "At least I don't cry whenever Ronald McDonald comes on TV."

"I was a kid." Sam retorted sharply.

"You keep telling yourself that." Lena replied with a sarcastic grin.

"Ladies; not the time." Dean interrupted to make them quiet, and he turned back to Will before the other man had chance to notice their bickering.

"She was about a hundred yards out." Will explained, before he'd even been asked a question. It seemed like he'd been through the same drill a few times before. "That's where she got dragged down."

"And you're sure she didn't just drown?" Dean questioned, immediately in 'work mode'.

"Yeah, she was a varsity swimmer." Will replied determinedly, but he saw the sceptical look on Dean's face "She practically grew up in that lake. She was as safe out there as she was in her own bathtub."

"So no splashing?" Sam asked "No signs of distress?"

"No, that's what I'm telling you." Will replied simply.

"Did you see any shadows in the water?" Lena queried "Maybe some dark shape breach the surface?"

"No" Will answered, and Lena could tell from the look on his face that he hadn't been asked _these _kinds of questions before "Again, she was really far out there."

"You ever see any strange tracks by the shoreline?" Dean continued.

"No, never. Why?" Will stammered, clearly caught off guard "Why, what do you thinks' out there?"

"We'll let you know as soon as we do." Dean promised as he turned towards the car, tugging on Lena's sleeve "Come on."

"What about your father?" Sam asked, remaining firm in his stance, though he spoke softly and carefully "Can we talk to him?"

Will looked ruefully over to his dad, unmoving on the dock, and turned back to Sam.

"Look," he started uneasily "If you don't mind, I mean...he didn't see anything and he's been through a lot."

Sam nodded disappointedly "We understand."

The three of them bade him their goodbyes and drove off to the town's police station, to see if they could gather more information there, but the sheriff, a middle-aged man named Jake Devin, wasn't much help to them either.

"Now, I'm sorry, but what does the Wildlife service care about an accidental drowning?" The sheriff queried after they had introduced themselves, and they were following him through the station.

"You sure it's accidental?" Sam suggested "Will Carlton saw something grab his sister."

Sheriff Devin scoffed "Like what?"

Jake led them to his office and opened the door, motioning them to sit in the seats in front of the desk.

"Here, sit, please," he offered, pulling another chair over for Lena before he turned serious again. "There are no indigenous carnivores in that lake."

Lena smiled and thanked him, and the three of them sat down and waited for him to continue.

"There's nothing even big enough to pull down a person, unless it was the Loch Ness monster."

"Yeah," Dean scoffed, because the Loch Ness was one of the few things they _knew _wasn't real. "Right." Sam shot his brother an irritated glance, but the Sheriff didn't notice. He simply carried on.

"Will Carlton was traumatized" he dismissed casually as he sat down "and sometimes the mind plays tricks. Still, we dragged that entire lake. We even ran a sonar sweep, just to be sure, and there was nothing down there."

"That's weird though." Dean replied, fishing for information "I mean, that's, that's the third missing body this year."

Jake sighed dejectedly "I know. These are people from my town. These are people I care about."

Dean, Sam and Lena weren't completely sure what to say, so they stayed silent, and Jake didn't say anything for a minute either, clearly lost in his thoughts, until he sighed again.

"Anyway...all this, it won't be a problem much longer." He commented quietly.

"What do you mean?" Lena questioned, her curiosity spiking.

"Well, the dam, of course." He answered, furrowing his brow, and the three of them guessed that judging by their current pseudo-status, that they should know about what he was talking about.

"Of course," Dean replied quickly "the damn. It's, uh, it sprung a leak."

"It's _falling apart_." Jake answered "and the feds won't give us the grant to repair it, so they opened the spillway. In another six months, there won't be much of a lake. There won't be much of a town either. But as Federal Wildlife, you already knew that." He finished, giving them an odd, confused look.

"Exactly." Dean grinned awkwardly, shooting nervous glances across at his brother and sister.

However, they were saved from anymore discomfort when a knock on the door behind them interrupted them. The three of them spun around to see a tall, dark haired woman with big, warm eyes gazing at them.

"Sorry," She smiled sheepishly "am I interrupting?"

Sam and Dean stood up to greet the woman.

"I can come back later." She offered, looking to the sheriff, who shook his head.

"Gentleman, this is my daughter."

"It's a pleasure to meet you." Dean grinned, holding out his hand for her "I'm Dean."

"Andrea Barr. Hi." She introduced herself.

"Hi." Dean replied, and Lena had to fight not to roll her eyes at the dopey look on Dean's face.

"They're from the Wildlife Service." Jake told her "About the lake."

"Oh." Andrea replied stiffly. Touchy subject apparently, Lena thought to herself.

Suddenly, a little boy appeared around the back of Andrea, looking nervous, with red hair flopping around his face.

"Oh hey there." Lena greeted him softly with a warm grin "What's your name?"

The boy simply stared up at her for a second and turned away, leaving the room. Andrea shot them an apologetic look and followed him.

"His name is Lucas." Jake told them. Lena watched as Andrea handed Lucas some crayons from a box in the main room.

"Is he ok?" Sam asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

"My grandson's been through a lot." Jake sighed "We all have."

He stood up from his desk and strode over to the door, inadvertently telling them to get lost.

Sure enough, the sheriff followed with "Well, if there's anything else I can do for you, please let me know."

They followed Jake out of the office, since had shot them a _no-nonsense-don't-argue-with-me_ look.

"Thanks," Dean continued "You know, now that you mention it, could you point us in the direction of a reasonably priced motel?"

Andrea smiled cheerfully, "Lakefront motel. Go around the corner. It's two blocks south."

Sam and Lena turned towards the door, eager for a hot shower, and a bed that wasn't the backseat of the impala, but it seemed as if Dean had other ideas.

"Two- would you mind showing us?"

Lena looked at him incredulously. He looked and sounded like he was genuinely confused by the idea of the place being so close. If Lena hadn't known that Dean would do pretty much anything for female attention, she might have believed him too. She shot him irritated glares, but Andrea only chuckled.

"You want me to walk you two blocks?"

Dean grinned "Not if it's any trouble."

"I'm headed that way anyway." Andrea laughed again, shaking her head as if Dean were a child that she had chosen to humour. "I'll be back to pick up Lucas at three." She told her father, before turning to Lucas and kissing his cheek "We'll go the park, ok sweetie?"

The boy didn't answer, didn't even acknowledge that she was anywhere near him, so they left. The sun outside was bright and warm, and Lena squinted, pulling her glasses from her face and jamming them into her pocket.

"So, cute kid." Dean commented as he trailed behind Andrea, who strode determinedly along the street.

"Thanks." Andrea replied, and Sam and Lena gave each other amused glances, wondering if Dean could make himself sound any dumber before the end of the day.

Dean continued "Kids are the best, huh?"  
Yeah, he definitely could.

Andrea glanced at him, but otherwise ignored him, and then they stopped in front of a building that exclaimed 'Lakefront Motel'.

"There it is." Andrea told them, pointing "Like I said, two blocks."

"Thanks." Sam replied, sounding slightly apologetic that his brother had really asked her to guide them two blocks. Andrea smiled as if she knew what he was trying to say and looked to Dean.

"Must be hard, with your sense of direction;" She started, and Dean beamed. He'd found over the years that women who pitied him for something, fake or not, were always the best, but his face soon fell when she continued "never being able to find your way to a decent pickup line."

Lena chuckled as Andrea started to walk away, calling 'Enjoy your stay!' over her shoulder.

"I like her." Lena laughed heartily, seeing the dumbfounded, kicked-puppy look on Dean's face.

"'Kids are the best'?" Sam asked, his eye brows raised into his hairline "You don't even like kids."

"I love kids." Dean exclaimed defensively.

"Name three children that you even know." Sam challenged with his arms crossed smugly across his chest. Dean opened his mouth to speak, but Sam quickly added "Lena doesn't count."

Dean raised a hand to count on his fingers, but he came up empty. Sam waved a dismissive hand at him and started towards the motel with Lena following. Dean simply scratched his head.

"I'm thinking!" he called after them.

Lena waited outside of the reception building while Sam and Dean went inside to book them a room. On the way inside, Dean tossed Lena the car keys so that she could start grabbing the bags from inside the trunk, and by the time they came back, she had already flung two over her shoulder. From the relatively happy looks on their faces, she guessed that this motel seemed like it could be one of the nicer ones. Sam and Dean grabbed the remaining bags and they crossed the parking lot to their room. However, when Sam opened the door and Lena saw inside, her heart sunk. It wasn't that it wasn't half-decent in there, it looked tidy and fairly clean, and it was plenty big enough.

"Dude," she groaned, dumping the bags on the floor in the doorway "there are only two beds."

"Well done Le," Dean smirked "You finally learnt to count."

"Oh ha ha, jackass." She replied sarcastically "But seriously Dean, I'm sixteen, not six. I'm too old to be sharing a bed with one of my brothers." She noticed the unbothered expressions on their faces and sighed "Unless you two are planning on sharing?"

That got their attention. Her brothers protested loudly, and Lena crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. "Guys come on, it stopped being cute when I turned ten."

"Alright, alright," Dean started "Look, it's already done now, but next time we stop, we'll get three beds. I promise."

Looking at his sister, Dean couldn't help but think that Lena had spent way too much time around Sam, because she seemed to have perfected her own version of his bitch face, but he didn't think she would appreciate a comment about it.

"Ok," Lena relented with an unimpressed sigh "I'm going to take a shower."

Lena scooped up her bag and crossed into the bathroom, closing the door softly behind her. She flicked on the shower, letting the steam rise up around her as she peeled off her old clothes and left them in a pile on the floor before stepping under the almost scalding jets. She relaxed under the water battering against her skin, and she scrubbed shampoo into her hair, feeling the grime of travelling slide off her and slink down the drain. She took longer with the conditioner, easing it through her long waves. When she was done, she wrapped a towel around her head, dried the rest of her off and dressed in a pair of faded jeans and an old AC/DC shirt of Dean's, feeling much better. She gathered up her dirty clothes and stuffed them messily into the bag with the rest of the laundry in and went back into the main room, rubbing her hair dry, where Sam was sat at the table with his laptop and Dean was shuffling through his duffel bag.

"So there's been three drowning victims this year." Sam stated as Lena took a seat across from him, pulling a brush through her hair.

"Any before that?" Lena questioned, trying to catch up.

"Uh, yeah." Sam replied, turning the computer around so that she could see the screen. The browser was open to _The Lake Manitoc Tribune _and the headline screamed 'DROWNING TAINTS ICE FISHING FESTIVAL.'. Lena clicked the other browser that Sam had open, again from the _Tribune_, and Lena cringed when it exclaimed '12-YEAR-OLD GIRL DROWNS IN LAKE, Second drowning in 6 months at Lake Manitoc.'

"Is this is?" Lena asked hopefully.

Sam shook his head "Six more spread out over the past thirty-five years. Those bodies were never recovered either. If there is something out there, it's picking up its pace."

"So what," Dean started, tossing things from his bag onto the bed "we got a lake monster on a binge?"

"This whole lake monster theory, it just bugs me." Sam told them uncertainly as he turned the screen away from Lena and continued his search.

"Why?" Dean asked, coming over and reading over Sam's shoulder.

"Loch Ness, uh, Lake Champlain," he listed off "there are literally hundreds of eyewitness accounts, but here, almost nothing."

Lena sighed as her brothers continued scrolling though pages of articles "So whatever's out there, no one's living to talk about it."

"Wait," Dean blurted, pointing to something on the screen, and Lena went around to stand next to them to see what it was "Barr. Christopher Barr. Where have I heard that name before?"

Sam leaned closer to the computer screen "Christopher Barr, the victim in May."

Sam clicked another link and brought up a new page that announced 'LOCAL MAN IN TRAGIC ACCIDENT.' The little picture on the side of the text was of a wide-eyed Lucas, and Lena read out the article.

"Christopher Barr was Andrea's husband, Lucas's father. Apparently he took Lucas out swimming. Lucas was on a floating wooden platform when Chris drowned." Lena cringed before reading the last part "Two hours before the kid got rescued."

Sam clicked the picture for a better look and let out a long breath, scratching his head. "Maybe we have an eyewitness after all."

"No wonder that kid was so freaked out." Dean mumbled "Watching one of your parents die isn't something you just get over."

Lena shot him a sad glance, knowing that her brother was speaking from personal experience. It wasn't even something she could try and help him with, even if there was something she could do, because she had no idea what it was like.

"Hey," She said quickly to distract them all "Didn't Andrea say she was taking Lucas to the park at three?"

She glanced down at her watch and gave a mental sigh of relief at her timing; five to three. Wordlessly, the three of them grabbed their jackets and left the motel room. It was a small town, so they didn't bother with the car. It only took them a few minutes of casual, relaxed walking to hear the unabashed levels of superabundant noise coming from the hoards of eager children zooming around the play area.

The spotted Andrea sitting alone on a bench at the edge of the park, and they followed her gaze over to Lucas. He was at another bench, using it as a desk to hold his toy soldiers and paper as he coloured.

"Can we join you?" Sam asked softly as they approached. Andrea looked up and saw them, smiling awkwardly.

"I'm here with my son." She told them and Lena furrowed her brow slightly in confusion. What difference did that make?

"Oh." Dean replied, as if he were surprised by the idea, looking across at Lucas "Mind if I say hi?"

Dean didn't wait for an answer before stalking off, and the three of them remaining watched him go for a minute before Andrea shot Sam and Lena a sceptical look.

"Tell your friend this whole _Jerry Maguire _thing is not gonna work on me."  
"I don't think that's what this is about." Sam chuckled lightly as he took a seat next to Andrea. Lena perched herself on the edge of the bench next to Sam, and watched as Dean crouched down next to Lucas. She couldn't hear what her brother was saying, but she could tell by the animated way he picked up one of the soldiers and let it fly back down, he was trying to engage with the child. Lucas, however, didn't seem like he had even noticed Dean was there. Lena was only half listening to Sam and Andrea's trivial conversation, because seeing Dean interacting with Lucas made her remember the way he'd been with her when she was younger. Sam had never been as willing to play with her as Dean had, despite the ten year age gap. He'd always played the parts she'd wanted him too, even if that meant crawling around on his hands and knees in a dingy motel room with Lena on his back, pretending to be a unicorn named Sparkles, though she was strictly forbidden from telling anyone about that. When she'd gotten bigger, he had steered her towards different games, like football and baseball, and most of the time, she found that she enjoyed those more; especially when every once in a while, Sam could be convinced to join in too. They'd spent countless hours running around; mostly when they were dumped at their 'Uncle' Bobby's while their dad worked. For a long time, Lena was sure that it was the games she liked, but when she'd been taken to school, she realised that what they'd done was irrelevant. It was Dean and his company that she missed.

It wasn't that she didn't miss Sam. He'd taught her a lot of things, and she was certain that it was his influence that made learning so interesting to her. Not school-Lena could think of nothing worse-but the idea of drinking in information and keeping it there for the rest of her life was so endearing. For as long as Lena could remember, Sam had read to her every night before bed, and that had only stopped when Sam had left for Stanford. Dean had tried to carry on the tradition for her, especially since she found it harder to sleep at first, but Dean's voice just wasn't like Sam's.

Lena was dragged from her thoughts by Sam tugging at her sleeve for her to follow. When she looked back to Dean, she was pretty sure she lip-read him saying '...geek brother and pain in the butt sister.' He handed something to Lucas and started to walk back over to them, and Lena tuned back into Sam's conversation.

"Lucas hasn't said a word, not even to me. Not since his dad's accident." Andrea told them sadly, looking back at Lucas.

"Yeah, we heard." Dean replied as he approached them "Sorry."

"What are the doctors saying?" Sam queried seriously.

"That it's some kind of post-traumatic stress."

Sam gave a small, sympathetic nod "That can't be easy. For either of you."

"We moved in with my Dad." Andrea explained "He helps out a lot. It's just...when I think about what Lucas went through, what he saw..." She trailed off, unsure of how to make the three strangers in front of her understand.

"Kids are strong." Dean assured her softly after a long pause "You'd be surprised what they can deal with."  
"You know," Andrea continued "he used to have such life. He was hard to keep up with, to tell you the truth. Now he just sits there, drawing those pictures, playing with those army men. I just wish-"

She was interrupted then by Lucas walking up to them with his head down.

Hey sweetie" Andrea greeted cheerfully, but Lucas didn't answer. He didn't even look at her. He simply lowered his head a little more, and held out a piece of paper in his hand to Dean.

"Thanks," Dean said, slight taken aback as he took it before adding "Thanks Lucas."

As abruptly as Lucas had appeared, he was gone again, heading back to the bench.

They said their goodbyes to Andrea, who was looking a little stunned at them, and started to make their way back to the motel. It was obvious that they weren't going to get a lot out of Lucas, and so there was no point in bothering them any more than was needed.

When they got back, Sam went out again almost immediately for coffee, and seeing nothing else to do, Lena grabbed the bag that held her school work. She slipped in her earphones and decided to tackle some biology work.

For about twenty minutes, Lena read and made notes on the structure of cells, while Dean lounged on one of the beds. They stayed in a companionable silence for a while before Dean apparently grew bored.

"What are you doing Le?" He asked, wondering over and looking over her shoulder.

"Biology." She replied simply, looking up to see the unimpressed expression on his face.

"I thought you didn't like biology?"

"I love biology." She answered, wondering what had given him that impression.

"Then why could you never turn up on time to your class?"

"Because Professor Wood is about as intellectually stimulating as a blunt pencil."  
"Fair enough." Dean chuckled, going back over to the bed and grabbing the TV remote. As he flicked through the channels, Lena went back to work, but thinking of school made other questions start swimming around in her head.

"Hey Dean?" She started gingerly, slowly taking out her music and putting her pen on the desk. Dean grunted a response, without taking his eyes from the TV, but Lena guessed that it was about as good as she was going to get.

"What happens if we don't find Dad?"

"I told you, we will find Dad." He replied stiffly, still not looking at her.

"I know, but what if-" she began, but Dean held up his hand to stop her.

"No, Elena, there is no 'what if' in this." He told her firmly "We _will _find Dad, and when we do, you can do what you want. You can stay with us; you can go back to school, whatever, ok?"

Lena bit her bottom lip and nodded. She really wanted to believe that it would be that simple, that things really were that clear cut. But Dean had never lied to her before.

Was now any different?

However, before the conversation could carry on, Sam bustled in with a tray of coffee cups, seemingly unaware of the sudden tension.

"So I think it's safe to say we can rule out Nessie." He announced as he handed Lena her drink-tea, thankfully.

"What do you mean?" Dean asked as his brother sat down next to him.

"I just drove past the Carlton house. There was an ambulance there. Will Carlton is dead."

"He drowned?" Dean guessed, eyebrows raised slightly.

"Yep." Sam replied "In the sink."

"What the hell?" Dean exclaimed "So you're right, this isn't a creature. We're dealing with something else."  
"Yeah," Sam sighed "But what?"

"I don't know," Lena replied dejectedly "Water wraith maybe? Some kind of demon?" She could tell that her brothers were listening intently to her suggestions, so she let her thought process come out loud. "I mean, something that controls water..." Realisation suddenly dawned upon her "Water that comes from the same source."

"Yeah," Dean agreed.

"Which would explain why it's upping the body count." Sam reasoned "The Lake is draining. It'll be dry in a few months. Whatever this thing is, whatever it wants, it's running out of time."

"And if it can get through the pipes, it can get to anyone, almost anywhere." Dean shot up restlessly "This is gonna happen again soon."

He sat back down across from Lena and her long-forgotten biology work.

"But there's no way to know where." Lena sighed, rubbing her face and taking another swig of her tea.

"We do know one thing for sure," Sam retorted "We know this thing has got something to do with Bill Carlton."

"Yeah," Dean concurred, folding his arms across his chest "It took both his kids."

"And I've been asking around." Sam added "Lucas's dad, Chris-Bill Carlton's godson."

"Let's go pay Mr Carlton a visit."


	8. Chapter 8

_**A/N: Hey guys!**_

_**Ok, I promise I'm not going to babble too much today haha I'm totally on a roll today! This is the third story I've updated today :) The other two were for my two OTH sisfics, so if you're interested in One Tree Hill, check those out too :)**_

_**Disclaimer: Nope...still not mine :(**_

_**Please please please R+R and let me know what you think! Pweety please?**_

_**Much love,**_

_**xoloveJBox**_

* * *

_**Chapter Eight-Dead in the water-part two.**_

When they arrived back at the Carlton's house, they found Bill sitting the dock again, staring out at nothing. Lena felt a wave of sympathy towards the man, unable to contemplate what he might be feeling. She stepped nervously along the wood of the dock, feeling goose-bumps erupting over her skin. God, she really hated water.

"Mr Carlton?" Sam said softly as they approached so as not to startle him. Mr Carlton looked up at them, eyes glassy, before turning away again.

"We'd like to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind." Sam asked him.

"We're from the, the department-" Dean continued, but Bill interrupted him.

"I don't care who you're with," he snapped, his voice hoarse and raspy with sorrow "I've answered enough questions today."

"Your son said he saw something in the lake. What about you? You ever see anything out there?" Lena asked quietly, but there was no response at all from the man.

"Mr Carlton," Sam carried on "Sophie's drowning and Will's death- we think there might be a connection to you or your family."

"My children are gone. It's...its worse than dying." Bill whispered sadly "Go away. Please."

The three of them didn't hang around. There was no need to upset Mr Carlton any more than he already was.

"What do you think?" Sam asked his brother and sister as they headed back towards the car.

"Aw, I think the poor guy's been through hell." Dean replied before adding "I also think he's not telling us something."

They reached the car and Sam and Lena leaned on the cool metal frame.

"So now what?" Sam asked his brother expectantly.

"Huh," Dean scoffed, looking straight over his brother's shoulder.

"What?" Lena questioned, following Dean's gaze, but she didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

"Maybe Bill's not the only one who knows something." Dean mumbled, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the picture Lucas had given him. He unfolded the paper and Lena leaned across the see the crayon replica of the house they had just left.

"Well," she sighed "Let's go see if Lucas feels like sharing."

"I'm sorry, but I don't think it's a good idea." Andrea told them firmly as they stood in her porch after announcing their seemingly strange request.

"I just need to talk to him." Dean argued simply.

"He won't say anything," Andrea huffed, exasperated "What good's it gonna do?"

"Andrea, we think more people might get hurt." Lena appealed pleadingly.

"We think something's happening out there." Sam finished, his face set in steely determination.

"My husband, the others; they just drowned." Andrea told them definitively "That's all."

"If that's what you really believe, then we'll go." Dean blurted as a last resort "But if you think there's even a possibility that something else could be going on here, please let me talk to your son."

The harsh lines of defiance on Andrea's face softened slightly, replaced with confusion. Silently, she nodded and headed to the stairs with a wordless command for them to follow them. The jumped at the opportunity and trailed after the woman, and Lena gently closed the door behind them.

The atmosphere in Andrea's home was warm and comforting, about a million years away from countless motel rooms the three Winchesters had grown up in. The walls were along the corridor was lined with photographs, reflecting beaming grins and happy memories at them as they walked past.

Andrea stopped suddenly, looking in through a door anxiously before stepping aside but not making a move away. Sam, Dean and Lena crowded in the doorway to see Lucas sitting cross-legged on his bedroom floor, drawing feverishly on papers strewn around him, surrounded by overturned toy soldiers. Dean slowly entered and crouched next to the boy, careful not to interrupt the way the protective soldiers lay.

"Hey Lucas," he started softly "You remember me?"

Lucas didn't answer. He simply continued to draw what looked like a red bicycle. Lena looked around and saw an almost exact copy of the same drawing, lying forgotten on a stack of doodles just to the side of Lucas.

"You know, I, uh, wanted to thank you for that last drawing." Dean continued, stumbling slightly over his words. It had been a long time since he'd had to talk to someone so young-not since Lena had been small-and Lena hadn't posed the same challenges as Lucas did "But the thing is," he carried on hopefully "I need your help again."

Again, Lucas didn't acknowledge that Dean was even there, but he'd moved on to a new picture; a person in water. Dean pulled out the picture of the Carlton house and put it down in front of Lucas, where there was no way he couldn't see it.

"How did you know to draw this?" Dean asked seriously "Did you know something bad was going to happen? Maybe you could nod yes or no for me?"

Nothing. Lucas continued to draw. Dean sighed slightly and looked to his brother and sister, who both shrugged, just as clueless as he was. Dean took a deep breath before turning back to Lucas.

"You're scared. It's ok, I understand." Dean told Lucas quietly "See, when I was your age, I saw something real bad happen to my mom, and I was scared too." Lena stiffened, and she felt Sam do the same next to her. Talking about their mother wasn't made any easier by the fact that the younger two Winchesters didn't remember her. They knew that Dean didn't like to talk about her or what happened, so if he was readily bringing it up, he must really be serious about finding out what was going on, and Lena added another point to the list of things she admired her brothers for "I didn't feel like talking, just like you. But see, my mom- I know she wanted me to be brave. I think about that every day. And I do my best to be brave. And maybe, your dad wants you to be brave too."  
No one expected Lucas to react anymore. They were ready to give up and move on, but they were all surprised when Luca put down his crayons and looked up at Dean-the first sign that he even recognised that anyone was with him. Lucas shuffled through his pile of pictures until he found one and handed it to Dean. It was of a white church, with a yellow house in the background, with a small boy in a blue baseball cap and a red bicycle, standing in front of a wooden fence.

Dean grinned "Thanks Lucas."

Lucas turned immediately back to his drawings, leaving no trace of the sudden interaction at all. Dean got up and returned to the doorway, where Sam and Lena looked pleased by the outcome, and Andrea just looked shocked. Dean held the picture out to Sam to look at, and Andrea glanced momentarily at it.

"What does this even mean?" She questioned, clearly puzzled "I mean, it's just a drawing. How is this important?"

"It might not be." Dean shrugged casually "We'll let you know when we know."

Lena glanced at Dean's face. Yeah, she thought, confirming what she suspected, he's lying. This totally means something.

Lena leaned forwards in her seat to look again at their newly drawn lead, still in Sam's hand as they drove.

"Andrea said the kid never drew like that till his dad died." Dean told them over the throbbing pulse from the music flittering from the stereo.

"There are cases-" Sam started distracted as he intently inspected, for about the hundredth time, the picture in his hand in hopes of finding something new in the crayon lines "going through a traumatic experience could make people more sensitive to premonitions, psychic tendencies."

"What, so you think the kid's gone Mystic Meg?" Lena questioned with raised eyebrows.

"That's one way to put it," Sam chuckled "Maybe, yeah."

"Whatever's out there" Dean continued "What if Lucas is tapping into it somehow?" Sam groaned in disagreement "I mean, it's only a matter of time before somebody else drowns so if you have a lead, please."

"Alright," Sam sighed "We got another house to find."

"The only problem is there are about a thousand yellow two-stories in this county alone." Lena complained, slumping back dejectedly in her seat and pulling her knees up to her chest.

Sam smirked, holding up the paper for Lena to see in her new position "See this church?" he asked, and Lena nodded "I bet there's less than a thousand of those around here."

"Oh," Dean laughed "College boy thinks he's so smart."

"You know, um..." Sam started a little awkwardly, choosing to ignore his brother's snarky comment. "What you said about Mom...You never told us that before."

"It's no big deal," Dean shrugged dismissively. He looked across at Sam, who was giving him a concerned look, and Dean groaned.

"Oh God, we're not gonna have to hug or anything, are we?" he whined "Because, you know, Lena's the teenage girl, not me. So all your touchy-feely crap's her job, ok?"  
"Hey," Lena protested "I don't do hugs either, jackass."

"You two are children, you know that?" Sam scoffed, shaking his head.

It took three hours of almost fruitless searching for them to find the right place. By the time they found it, Lena was getting ratty and irritated, but she let out a sigh of relief when Dean held up Lucas's drawing and it showed that they were stood almost exactly where Lucas's perspective had shown him.

"Well," Dean announced, looking pleased "this is the place."

"Yeah, but this is across the other side of town from the lake," Lena argued, reaching into a mental file in her head that held all the research she had done "Bill Carlton didn't have any other children, his wife died twelve years ago, and Chris Barr's family all live in Chicago. What's the connection here?"

"There's only one way to find out." Sam finally said after a moment of contemplative silence.

They crossed the street and Dean tapped on the front door, and Lena noticed a shift in the floral curtains on the window next to the door. When she looked, Lena saw white hair and a wrinkly face peer out at them, so she stepped in front of her brothers. As soft and harmless as they were to almost everything that wasn't supernatural, Sam and Dean were both big, tall guys, and Lena had seen younger, tougher people unintentionally intimidated by her brothers without them even opening their mouths. She wasn't going to run the risk of them scaring an elderly lady when there was a good chance she didn't even have anything to do with what they were looking for.

A minute later, the front door cracked open a little, held by a safety chain and the woman inside looked warily at them through the gap.

"Good afternoon Ma'am" Lena greeted softly with a warm grin "My name is Elena. This is Sam and Dean." She pulled out the fake id that she had snatched from the car on the way out, and her brothers followed her lead "We were hoping we could ask you a few questions?"

The woman seemed to relax a little after inspecting the badges, and she slipped the chain off and let them in.

"We're sorry to bother you ma'am," Dean started as they followed her into the living room "but does a little boy live here, by chance? He might wear a blue ball cap, has a red bicycle."

"No sir," the woman replied shakily, looking sadly down at the ground "Not for a very long time. Peter's been gone for thirty-five years now."

Her eyes flickered subconsciously to the side of her, and Lena looked to see a picture of a young boy, maybe ten or eleven, grinning at the camera.

"The police never-"she continued " I never had any idea what happened. He just disappeared."

Sam looked around the room and nudged his brother, nodding towards a handful of toy soldiers that lay on a coffee table at the edge of the room.

"Losing him..." the woman continued with a shaky breath "You know, it's...it's worse than dying."

Lena looked curiously across at her brothers. Wasn't that what Bill Carlton had said? Word for word? she asked with her eyes, and though no words passed between them, she knew that Sam and Dean were on her wavelength.

"Did he disappear from here?" Dean questioned "I mean, from this house?"

"He was supposed to ride his bike straight home after school," she replied sadly "and he never showed."

Lena could see the woman getting upset, and she stepped towards her in hopes of giving some comfort. While their sister murmured soft assurances, Sam and Dean took a closer look around the room. Sam went in one direction, and Dean the other, heading towards a large mirror with photographs tucked in at the sides of the frame. He tentatively picked one out, of two boys in what looked like boy-scout uniforms. They each grinned broadly at the camera, and one-Peter- leaned against a shiny red bicycle. Dean intensely inspected the picture, and turned it over in his hand.

"Peter Sweeney and Billy Carlton," he read, catching Sam and Lena's attention "Nineteen-seventy."

Finally getting some kind of connection to work with, the three of them thanked Mrs Sweeney for her time and left. As soon as they were out of the woman's gaze, they hurried to the car and clambered in, barely closing the doors before Dean was pulling out, crunching gravel under the wheels.

"Ok," Sam started determinedly "this little boy, Peter Sweeney vanishes, and this is all connected to Bill Carlton somehow."  
"Yeah," Dean agreed solemnly "Bill sure as hell seems to be hiding something, huh?"

"And Bill, the people he loves," Sam continued "they're all getting punished."  
"So what if Bill did something to Peter?" Lena suggested from the backseat.

"What if Bill killed him?" Sam asked, wide-eyed with realisation.

"Peter's spirit would be furious." Dean added "It'd want revenge. It's possible."

Lena felt the car lurch forwards as Dean pressed his foot to the gas, and they sped desperately over to Bill Carlton's. The sooner they found out what was going on, the sooner they could do something about it.

The impala's wheels screeched in protest as Dean halted sharply on the asphalt of the Carlton's driveway. Lena all but dived from her seat headed quickly over to the front door, banging her fists on the wood, but there was no response.

"Mr Carlton?" She yelled desperately. A soft roar of an engine grabbed their attention, and the three of them spun around to see Bill riding in his boat, going further out across the lake.

"Hey, check it out." Dean mumbled unhelpfully.

Sam and Dean took off at a feverish run towards the water.

"Always with the damn lake." Lena muttered darkly, but followed her brothers all the same, until they reached the end of the dock, where they stood, shouting and waving their arms around frantically.

"Mr Carlton! You need to come back!"  
"Come out of the water! Turn the boat around!"

"Mr Carlton!"

Despite all their calling and yelling, Bill Carlton simply ignored them. He seemed calm and completely at ease.

He didn't even cry out when the water suddenly rose up and swiftly swallowed him whole.

They flusteredly followed Sheriff Devin into the police station. Andrea looked up when they walked in, shooting them confused glances.

"Sam, Dean, Lena." She started, standing up "I didn't expect to see you here."

"So now you're on a first-name basis?" Jake asked her, momentarily lapsing in his concentration of the situation "What are you doing here?

"I bought you dinner." She replied, looking over at the containers of the seat next to Lucas.

"I'm sorry sweetheart." Jake sighed "I don't really have the time."  
"I heard about Bill Carlton." Andrea continued "Is it true? Is something going on with the lake?"

Jake rubbed his face with his hand "Right now we don't know what the truth is. But it might be better if you and Lucas went on home."

Lucas, apparently, had different ideas. He let out a whine and jumped up from his seat, grabbing Dean's arm fiercely, clinging on as if his life depended on it.

"Lucas, hey, what is it?" Dean asked, lowering himself down to the boy's level "Lucas?"

Lucas continued to pull hysterically at Dean's sleeve. Seemingly inconsolable, and Lena shot a quizzical glance over at Sam, who looked just as clueless.

"Lucas, it's ok. It's ok." Dean murmured softly, hoping to give some kind of comfort to the small child "Hey Lucas, its ok. It's ok."

Looking confused and concerned, Andrea finally managed to pry Lucas's fingers from the leather of Dean's jacket, and she led him away. Lucas looked back at them dejectedly, but his mother guided him out the door before he had a chance to do anything else. Jake through down him jacket, frustrated, and stalked into his office. Sam and Lena followed him, but Dean continued to look after Lucas for a second, bemused, before trailing after his brother and sister. Jake motioned moodily to the seats in front of his desk, and the three of them sat silently. Jake rubbed again at his face and sat on the edge of his desk, looking at Sam, Dean and Lena darkly.

"Ok, just so I'm clear," he started irritably "you see...something attack Bill's boat, sending Bill-who is a very good swimmer, by the way- into the drink, and you never see him again?"

Dean looked across at Lena and Sam "Yeah, that about sums it up."

"And I'm supposed to believe this, even though I've already sonar-swept that entire lake? And what you're describing is impossible?" Jake looked at them expectantly, making the three of them feel like badly behaved school children, before adding unexpectedly "And you're not really wildlife service?"

Lena shot her brothers a worried look, and Dean looked wide-eyed at the sheriff.

"That's right," he continued "I checked. The department's never heard of you two, and they don't take interns."

Dean gave a falsely cheerful smile "See, now, we can explain that."

"Enough," Jake snapped "Please. The only reason you're breathing free air is one of Bill's neighbours saw him steering that boat just before you did. So, we have a couple of options here." Jake explained, and Lena was almost transported back to Dean Roger's office at school "I can arrest you for impersonating government officials and hold you as material witnesses to Bill Carlton's disappearance." Lena stiffened at the idea, and she felt Sam do the same next to her "Or, we can chalk this all up to a bad day, you get into your car, you put this town in your rear-view mirror, and you don't ever darken my doorstep again."

The way Jake was growling his words let all three of them know how serious he was, and they didn't feel much like pushing their luck and arguing.

"Door number two sounds good." Sam commented casually.

"That's the one I'd pick." Jake replied with a sarcastic grin.

The three of them had no doubts that the sheriff would make good of his promise, so they made sure that it took them less than an hour to get back to the motel, pack everything into the Impala and check out. They drove for a little while in silence, and the sun fell in the sky, pulling an inky blanket over the world around them. Dean pulled up at a set of traffic lights, and Lena looked out of her window to see a sign that told them the I-43 North to Milwaukee was to the left. It took a second for Sam to realise that the light had switched to green, but the car wasn't moving. He looked across at Dean, who was wearing a pensive expression.

"Green." Sam said, seemingly randomly

"What?" Dean questioned, coming out of his thoughts and back to the real world.

"Light's green." Sam explained minimally.

Dean looked up, as if checking for himself, before pulling out and going right.

"Uh, dude, the interstate's the other way." Lena pointed out with a small laugh, leaning forward in her seat.

"I know." Dean replied simply, continuing back towards Lake Manitoc.

"What are we doing?" Lena asked, confusion setting in when she saw the determined look on Dean's face.

"We're going back; I don't have a good feeling." Dean answered, pressing his foot a little harder on the gas.

"But Dean," Sam argued incredulously "this job, I think it's over."

"I'm not so sure." Dean retorted shortly.

"If Bill murdered Peter Sweeney and Peter's spirit got its revenge, case closed." Sam commented incredulously, and Lena could tell that Sam didn't like the possibility of them all being arrested "The spirit should be at rest."  
"All right," Dean snapped "so what if we take off and this thing isn't done? You know, what if we've missed something? What if more people get hurt?"  
"But why would you think that?" Lena asked softly, because she could tell that whatever was going on in Dean's head was really bugging him.

"Because Luca was really scared." He finally admitted quietly.

Sam scoffed "That's what this is about?"

"I just don't want to leave this town until I know the kid's ok." Dean appealed, and Lena bit her lip uncertainly. She knew that Dean must really be serious, but she didn't know why. Even she had to admit that there wasn't a lot of evidence for them to go back.

"Who are you, and what have you done with my brother?" Sam asked jokingly.

Dean glanced at Sam for a second. "Shut up." He muttered.

Despite the laughing and jokes, Sam didn't question Dean anymore, and they made their way back to Andrea's house. After a long day, all three of them were running on fumes, but it was clear to both Sam and Lena that Dean wasn't going to be able to settle until he knew for sure that everything was ok, so they indulged him. When they pulled up, they all clambered tiredly out of the car and trudged up to the door.

"Are you sure about this?" Sam asked quietly "It's pretty late."

Wordlessly, Dean raised his hand to ring the door bell. However, before the tune had finished its first chime, the door was yanked open, and Lucas stood in front of them, panting frantically, pale faced and terrified.

"Lucas?" Dean exclaimed. All three of them were instantly on alert, but Lucas still didn't say anything. He simply made sure he still had their attention and took off back into the house.

"Lucas!" Dean called after him, but it was painfully clear that something had made the child desperately afraid. Sam, Dean and Lena tore after him, all questions and queries tossed aside as they followed the boy up the stairs, and they saw that water was cascading down them. Lucas started pounding on the bathroom door, ignoring the water seeping over his bare feet from underneath. Instantly in action mode, Dean took Lucas by the shoulders and pushed him over to Sam and Lena, while he swiftly raised his foot and booted open the door. Inside, they could see the bathtub, overflowing with dark, murky water erupting mercilessly from the tap at the foot of the tub, and the discarded clothes on the floor made it plainly obvious what was going on. Lucas lurched forwards and grabbed Dean, still terrified, and Sam and Lena dived into the bathroom, immediately throwing their hands into the water.

Indiscernible whispers lined the walls, and after a moment of searching, Lena finally felt Andrea's legs brushed against her fingers. However, as soon as she got a solid grip, something in the water clawed at her fingers to loosen them. Shocked, Lena looked across at Sam, who seemed to be having the same problem, but they both pushed forwards and tried again. For a few agonising seconds, it seemed to Lena that no matter how much progress they made at stopping Andrea from drowning, whatever was in the water was always stronger than them. Nonetheless, after a lot of grunting, the finally managed to pull Andrea's head from the water, and after that, it only took them a few seconds to pull her completely out the bathtub. As Andrea lay on top of Sam, panting and coughing out water, Lena grabbed a towel and spread it across her.

OK, so Peter Sweeney wasn't done after all.


	9. Chapter 9

_**A/N: Howdy :) How is everyone?**_

_**Ok, honestly, I was so glad when I finished the chapters for this episode. I don't know why, but I really struggled with them, so if they are not up to scratch, I apologize. Feel free to point it out to me :)**_

_**I don't really have anything to ramble about this time (Shock, I know. I quite enjoy rambling...) but the chapters seem kind of naked without and author's note haha**_

_**I want to give a huge thank you to wondertogondor and sweetkiwi604! I have no idea where this story would be without the two of them, so every single time I update, you have them to thank :) I'm going to try and get up another chapter of Hands and Feet soon (if you don't know, that's my series of pre-series one-shots of when Sam, Dean and Lena were younger) so yeah, if you haven't already, check that out too!**_

_**I'm totally astounded by what the traffic stats thing tells me for this story when I look! I'm so grateful to every single person that reads it, and I'm in eternal debt to the ones who leave me a review! Thank you so much *Throws virtual cookies and hugs and whatever else may be nice***_

_**Please please please R+R to let me know what you think! If you'd rather, PM me instead 3**_

_**Thanks a bunch!**_

_**xoloveJBox**_

* * *

_**Chapter Nine-Dead in the water-part three.**_

The sun was just beginning to rise when Lena pushed a steaming mug of tea into Andrea's trembling fingers. Andrea was sitting on her couch, bundled up in the warmest looking clothes that Lena could find in the woman's wardrobe. She took a few tentative sips of the drink and placed the mug on the table in front of her, and Lena watched as Sam scooted over a little closer.

"Can you tell me?" He asked her softly.

"No." Andrea replied shakily. Lena moved away and sat at the dinner table with Lucas, where she could still hear and see them without actually being a part of the conversation. Lena knew that Andrea would tell Sam eventually. Everyone always told Sam what hurt. He just had one of those faces.

"It doesn't make any sense." Andrea argued, tears filling in her eyes and voice "I'm going crazy."

"No, you're not." Sam assured her gently "Tell me what happened. Everything."

"I heard...I thought I heard." She stammered "there was a voice."

"What did it say?" Sam queried.

"It said...It said 'Come play with me." Andrea took a deep breath, but it didn't stop the sob that erupted from her chest "What's happening?" she cried.

However, before Sam had chance to try and offer some kind of explanation, Dean bustled into the room with a large, dusty book in his hand. He opened it up and slammed it over-zealously on the table in front of Andrea, and Lena wandered over to see that her brother was so worked up over. The page was opened at a yellowing photograph of a group of boys.

"Do you recognise the kids in these pictures?" Dean asked Andrea determinedly.

"What?" Andrea asked, clearly caught off guard his seemingly random question "Um, um no. I mean, except that's my Dad right there." She pointed to one the boys in the corner of the photo, and then her fingers travelled over the page to a blown up version of the same image, where Jake was stood next to a familiar face. Peter Sweeney. "He must have been about twelve in these pictures."

"Chris Barr's drowning." Dean started, his eyes flashing with realisation as he looked across at Sam and Lena "The connection wasn't to Bill Carlton. It must have been to the sheriff."

"Bill and the sheriff." Sam added "They were both involved with Peter."

"What about Chris? My dad-" Andrea blurted, confusion etched into her features "What are you talking about?"

Lena looked across at her brothers, hoping that they would know what to say, because she was completely clueless. Dean, however, wasn't taking any notice of them. He was looking over at Lucas, who was now stood by the front door, gazing out of the house.

"Lucas, what is it?" He asked. Lucas didn't even look at him before pulling open the door and walking out. The four of them hurried after him, but they made no attempt to stop him, because, honestly? They were curious as to where he was going.

"Lucas, honey?" Andrea called after him when they had walked a little way into the woods. Lucas simply stopped, seemingly randomly, and looked up expectantly at Dean. Lena looked down at the ground in front of where Lucas had stopped, but there was nothing there. Nevertheless, Dean seemed content, and Lena wasn't sure how happy she was that he was putting so much faith and energy into the indications of a young boy.

Dean looked determinedly at Andrea "You and Lucas get back to the house and stay there, ok?" Andrea nodded and pulled Lucas with her. Silently, Lena followed them down and went to the car, retrieved three shovels from the trunk and took them back to her brothers. With the three of them digging together, it didn't take long for Sam's shovel to twang as it struck something. They all crouched down and started to pull at the dirt with their hands, and when something hard, cold and metallic poked out from underneath, Lena picked up the shovels and moved slightly out of the way while Sam and Dean hauled it out of the ground. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but an old, rusting bicycle hadn't been it. She wondered what it even had to do with anything, until she noticed the fading colour. Red.

"Peter's bike." She breathed.

"Who are you?" A voice came from behind them, and they spun around to face the sheriff, pointing his gun at them.

"Put the gun down Jake." Sam said, and Lena felt both of her brothers take an instinctively protective step in front of her.

"How did you know that was there?" Jake demanded, and even from where she stood, Lena could see Jake's hand trembling.

"What happened?" Dean barked "You and Bill killed Peter, drowned him in the lake and then buried his bike? You can't bury the truth Jake. Nothing stays buried."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Jake replied nervously, and it was obvious to everyone that he was lying.

"You and Bill killed Peter Sweeney thirty-five years ago; that's what the hell I'm talking about." Dean answered sharply.

"Dad!" Andrea called, and Lena turned to see her running up to them. She cursed under her breath. Why did no one ever listen?

"And now you've got one seriously pissed off spirit." Dean finished, completely ignoring Andrea as she approached.

"It's going to take Andrea," Sam started quickly, seeing how he could use the situation to make Jake realise the severity of it all. "Lucas, everyone you love. It's gonna drown them. And it's gonna drag their bodies God knows where, so that you can feel the same pain Peter's mom felt. And then, after that, it's gonna take you, and it's not gonna stop until does."

"Yeah," Jake sneered "and how do you know that?"

"Because that's exactly what it did to Bill Carlton." Lena replied quietly, hoping the tactic had worked, because they were running out of ideas and options.

"Listen to yourselves, all of you" Jake laughed bitterly "You're insane!"

"I don't really give a rat's ass what you think of us," Dean snarled irritably "But if we're gonna bring down this spirit, we need to find the remains, salt them, and burn them into dust. Now, tell me you buried Peter somewhere. Tell me you didn't just let him go in the lake."  
"Dad, is any of this true?" Andrea asked shakily, barely above a whisper.

"No." Jake snapped quickly "Don't listen to them. They're crazy and they're dangerous."

"Something tried to drown me." She told him as firmly as she could manage "Chris died on that lake. Dad, look at me!" she demanded and, although it was hesitant, he finally obeyed.

"Tell me you- you didn't kill anyone." Andrea pleaded, her words catching and snagging in her throat.

Jake pulling his eyes away was the only answer she needed.

"Oh my God." She breathed, stifling a shocked sob.

"Billy and I were at the lake," Jake explained solemnly "Peter was the smallest one. We always bullied him, but this time it got rough." As he spoke, Lena could almost see the memory playing out in front of his eyes "We were holding his head under the water. We didn't mean to. But we held him under too long, and he drowned. We let the body go, and it sank."

Lena groaned. Regardless of the fact he made their job three million times harder; nobody, no matter who they were, deserved that. Everyone deserves a place to rest that is better than the bottom of a lake, and Peter had simply been the victim of an out of hand game. Lena saw Dean glance dejectedly at Sam, and she could tell that they were trying to formulate a plan, but Lena couldn't see what they were supposed to do.

"Oh Andrea," Jake continued desperately "we were just kids. We were so scared. It was a mistake. But Andrea, to say that I have anything to do with these drownings, with Chris, because of some ghost? It's not rational."

"Oh yeah?" Lena scoffed gently "How else to do explain it?"  
The sheriff opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Lena turned her head away from the man, suddenly filled with resentment towards him. Child or not, accident or not, Peter Sweeney had died because of his friend's stupidity, and his mother had spent every day since not knowing what had happened to him.

"Alright, listen to me, all of you." Dean commanded "We need to get you away from this lake, as far as we can, right now."

Movement out of the corner of her eye made Lena raise her gaze towards the lake and she almost felt herself pale at the sight of Lucas, heading dangerously down to the lake.

"Dean!" she exclaimed, and everyone's eyes snapped to where she was looking.

"Lucas!" Jake yelled frantically, and Andrea gasped as they all took off at a frenzied sprint towards the boy, who was dangling precariously over the edge of the dock."  
"Lucas! Baby, stay where you are!" Andrea called as they neared, but before they had chance to take another breath, Lucas toppled forward and disappeared under the dark surface.

Dean got to the edge of the dock first, closely followed by Lena, but she got to the edge of the water and froze. She couldn't make her body move. She cursed herself as Sam brushed past her, and Lena noticed how neither of them even hesitated or slowed down before diving into the lake.

"Oh my God!" Andrea screamed ass he started to take her jacket off, ready to jump in after them, but Sam's head emerged from the water and stopped her before she could even get a foot off the dock. Lena still couldn't make her body listen to her, no matter how much she wanted to help her brothers and Lucas.

"Andrea, stay there!" he demanded firmly

"No!" Andrea argued defiantly "Lucas!"

"We'll get him!" Sam promised her "Just stay on the dock! Lena, don't let her come in!"

Lena nodded obediently, despite the fact that she hated feeling so useless, and she watched as Sam dipped under the water. Lena wrapped a comforting hand around Andrea as the woman sank helplessly to her knees, and they both frantically searched the water.

Lena was sure that she didn't take a breath until she saw Dean, and then a second later, Sam break through the surface. They both came up empty handed.

"Anything?" Dean shot hopefully at Lena.

"Nothing." She replied quickly. Dean cursed and turned to his brother.

"Sam?"

Sam simply shook his head. They both took a deep gulp of air and returned out of their sight.

"Don't worry," Lena whispered, fakely cheerfully "They'll find him. They'll bring him back."

"Peter, if you can hear me...Please" Jake pleaded, and Lena looked around to see him wading waist deep in the lake.

"Jake, what are you doing?" She barked "Get out of the water!"

"Peter, I'm sorry. I'm so-" Jake continued, ignoring Lena's demands "I'm so sorry."

"Daddy, no!" Andrea begged him, but Jake was beyond listening to reason.

"Peter, Lucas-he's just a little boy. Please, it's not his fault. It's mine. Please, take me!"

Breaking water made Lena and Andrea looked around again. Sam and Dean had come up again, but there was still no sign of Lucas.

"Jake, no!" Dean hollered when he saw what the man was doing, but Jake didn't even seem like he had heard at all.

"Just let it be over!" He shouted, and suddenly, he was yanked out of sight.

"Daddy!" Andrea screamed "Daddy, no!"

Lena watched as her brothers yet again dived under the surface, and she held onto Andrea tightly, trying to find any words that might bring some sort of comfort. But they were running out of time, and they all knew it.

It was like slow motion. Time seemed to slow painfully as Sam came up, shook his soaking hair from his eyes and shook his head dejectedly. Andrea started to scream and cry, and Lena felt tears welling in her own eyes as she looked around for her oldest brother. He emerged a second later, but this time, he wasn't empty handed. He had Lucas. But the boy wasn't moving.

Nobody said much the next day as Sam, Dean and Lena packed up, checked out and tossed the bags into the trunk. Lena looked up at Dean, and saw the miserable look on his face, as she felt a pang of sympathy for him. She knew that the whole case had thrown him, and they definitely hadn't ended with the outcome he would have wanted.

"Hey," she said gently, putting her hand softly on his arm "Look; we're not going to save everybody."

Dean sighed dejectedly "I know."

"Sam, Dean, Lena." A voice behind them called, and they turned to see Andrea and Lucas walking towards them. Lena couldn't help but smile when she saw Dean's face brighten a little at the sight of them. They hadn't been able to save Jake, but when Dean had pulled Lucas to the surface, Andrea had darted forwards and hauled him out of the water, while Lena stayed at the edge to help her brothers out of the lake. Lena knew that Lucas must have been a strong kid, because by the time Sam and Dean were safely on solid ground, dripping wet and dithering, Lucas was spluttering out water while his mother cried into his hair and rocked them both gently back and forth.

"Hey." Dean greeted happily as the three of them started to walk towards them.

"We're glad we caught you." Andrea told them with a grin "We just, um, we made you lunch for the road." She looked down at Lucas and beamed "Lucas insisted on making the sandwiches himself."

"Can I give it to them now?" Lucas asked, his voice soft and low, and Lena couldn't help by smile.

"Of course." Andrea told him, leaning down and planting a kiss on his head.

"Come on Lucas; let's load this into the car." Dean suggested, leading the boy over to the Impala.

"How are you holding up?" Lena asked Andrea when Lucas was out of earshot.

"It's just gonna take a long time to sort through everything, you know?"  
Sam looked down at his shoes and sighed "Andrea, I'm sorry."

Andrea shook her head, dismissing his apology "You saved my son." She replied simply "I can't ask for more than that. Dad loved me. He loved Lucas. No matter what he did, I just have to hold onto that."

Lena gave a small nod in agreement. She knew what it was like to realise that sometimes the people you looked up to the most weren't always perfect. In fact, she wasn't completely sure she'd ever had the chance to think that.

Behind them, they heard Lucas exclaim "Zeppelin rules!" and when Lena turned to walk towards them, she could see Dean sat in the front seat, holding his hand up for a high five, which Lucas enthusiastically reciprocated.

"Dean," she started with a mischievous grin "Stop teaching him stupid things."

"Don't listen to her Lucas." Dean said, shooting Lucas a wink "She doesn't know what she's talking about. You take care of your mom, ok?"  
"Alright." Lucas agreed as Andrea and Sam came up to them. Dean stood up, but before he had chance to say anything, she was greeted with a kiss from Andrea.

"Thank you." She whispered when she moved away slightly. Lena saw the goofy look on her brother's face as he searched in his mind for something to say. He must not have found anything good enough, because he simply ran a hand through his hair and started to go around the car.

"Sam, Lena, move your asses. We're gonna run out of daylight before we hit the road."

Dean got in first, trying to hide the scarlet blushing of his cheeks, and Lena ruffled Lucas's hair playfully on her way past him.

"See you later Bud." She said as she clambered into the backseat. The radio erupted when Dean started the engine, and they all smiled widely as they pulled away, watching Andrea and Lucas waving happily to them as they went.

Lena leaned back in her seat, beaming, and Dean shot her an amused look from the rear-view mirror.

"What are you grinning at?" he asked, bemused.

"You two are amazing, you know that?" She answered cryptically. Sam and Dean threw each other sceptical glances and groaned simultaneously.

"We're not going to have to hug or anything, are we?" Dean whined, and Lena laughed heartily. She may not have a mother, or a present father, or a white picket fence house with flower baskets and a dog, but she had her brothers. She could remember when she was younger; she had seen her big brothers as superheroes. They were always there, and as long as that never changed, Lena knew she would take her dysfunctional life any day.


	10. Chapter 10

_**A/N: Hey there! How is everyone?**_

_**I know I didn't update last week, but I've been so busy, and didn't have as much time to write :( I'm still not as caught up as I'd like, but I thought I'd post this week anyway :)**_

_**Please remember to R+R! It only takes a minute, and I appreciate every single review so much! Thanks a million to Wondertogondor, sweetkiwi604, Mayrem, Alison, Guest (X2, though the first one was my best friend haha) and RodneyIsGodney for your reviews! Particularly Wondertogondor and sweetkiwi604! They have been so incredible supportive and helpful, both with this story and Hands and Feet (The pre-series oneshots to go with this) and I have no idea where this story would be without the two of them, so if you like this, they are to thank everytime I update (They have some wicked stuff too, so go check their stories out!)**_

_**Errmm, I think that's about it this week...Yeah. **_

_**Let me know what you think (btw, I'm always looking for ideas for Hands and Feet, so feel free to PM me if you have any that you don't mind me using!)**_

_**Lots of love and virtual cookies :')**_

_**xoloveJBox**_

* * *

_**Chapter Ten- Phantom Traveller-part 1.**_

The sun creaked in feebly through the thin, motel room curtains. Over his life, Dean had learned to sleep lightly, and the jarring sound of the door handle shifting made his eyes snap open. He heard the door drag along the worn carpet as it opened, and heavy footsteps padded across the floor. In the other bed, Lena still slept peacefully, undisturbed by the intrusion, and Dean covertly slipped his hand under his pillow, his fingers gripping the handle of the knife there.

The footsteps moved closer into the room and paused. Dean sucked in a breath and turned over, keeping weapon hidden until the right moment, but he quickly let it go again when he realised that it was only Sam.

"Morning sunshine." Sam chimed, holding up a tray of coffees and a paper bag.

"What time is it?" Dean groaned when he realised the threat was non-existent.

"Uh, it's about five forty-five." Sam replied casually.

"In the morning?" Dean exclaimed incredulously.

"Yep."  
Dean sighed, rubbing his eyes sleepily "Where does the day go?" he muttered sarcastically, pushing himself up into a sitting position as he looked over at his brother. Sam ran a hand over his face, and Dean noticed the dark circles under Sam's eyes.

"Did you get any sleep last night?" Dean questioned seriously.

"Yeah, I grabbed a couple of hours." Sam replied dismissively.

"Liar" Dean shot back. "'cause I was up at three, and you were watching the George Foreman infomercial."

"Hey, what can I say?" Sam grinned "It's riveting TV."

Dean pulled his legs over the side of the creaky bed "When was the last time you got a good night's sleep?"

"I don't know" Sam replied "a little while I guess. It's not a big deal."  
Dean scoffed "Yeah it is."

"Look," Sam started "I appreciate your concern-"

"Oh," Dean interrupted quickly "I'm not concerned about you. It's your job to keep my ass alive; so I need you sharp."

Sam shrugged and the casual look on Dean's face slipped off.

"Seriously, are you still having nightmares about Jess?"

Sam sighed at the unwanted topic and crossed the room, perching himself on the edge of Lena's bed and handed Dean his coffee

"Yeah, but it's not just her," Sam rook up his own drink, grateful for the small distraction the motion provided "It's everything. I just forgot, you know? This job, man, it gets to you."  
"You can't let it" Dean advised firmly "You can't bring it home like that."

"So, what? All this," Sam began, waving his arms around slightly "it...never keeps you up at night." Dean shook his head "Never? You're never afraid?"

"No, not really." Dean answered matter-of-factly. Sam simply reached over and pulled out the knife from under Dean's pillow, holding it up as evidence and looking expectantly at his brother. Dean, unable to think of a decent response fast enough, snatched the blade away again.

"That's not fear" he explained "That's precaution."

"Alright, whatever." Sam mumbled "I'm too tired to argue."

He looked down jealously at his sleeping sister as she snored lightly. He wished he could find peace for long enough to get some rest. The look didn't go unnoticed by Dean, but he didn't even bother suggesting that Sammy try to get some sleep for a few hours, because he knew it wouldn't happen.

"Alright, wakey wakey Princess!" He boomed instead, but Lena continued to sleep.

"Hey Elena," he yelled, taking his pillow and whacking the back of her head with it "If we have to be up, so do you. Move your butt!"

Lena groaned and blinked dazedly at the watch still on her wrist.

"Dude," she grumbled "Leave me alone, it's not even six in the morning."

"I don't care." Dean declared "Don't make me start counting."

Lena muttered something that sounded like curses into her pillow, but she begrudgingly sat up, glaring darkly at Dean and smiling gratefully at Sam when he handed her a paper cup of tea.

The shrill shrieking of Dean's phone halted any attempt of conversation that might have come up then, and he picked it up and frowned at it before answering.

"Hello?" He questioned curiously, not recognising the number on the screen.

Dean listened for a second before the harsh lines of confusion eased out of his face.

"Oh, right, yeah." He said into the phone "Up in Kittanning, Pennsylvania; the poltergeist thing."

Lena remembered the instance Dean was describing. It had only been a few weeks after she had arrived at school, and after a particularly nostalgic afternoon, Lena had phoned Dean, just to hear his voice. He had told her about the problems a poltergeist had been causing, but as far as supernatural beings went, a poltergeist was pretty simple, and Dean and John had taken it out almost effortlessly. "It's not back is it?" Dean asked a second later, but whatever was said down the line momentarily relaxed him before putting him on the defensive again.

"What is it?" Dean queried, looking a little uneasy as he listened "Yeah, sure. We'll be there in a few hours. Ok, bye."

Dean snapped the phone shut and rubbed a hand tiredly over his face.

"What've we got?" Lena asked casually, taking a sip of her tea.

"I have no idea, but that was Jerry Panowski, and he thinks something's up" Dean sighed, unimpressed "Come on, we've got to get going."

Within an hour, they were pulling out of the motel parking lot. Lena slipped in her earphones in hopes of waking herself up a little. As they drove along, she made a mental note to call Taylor soon. She hadn't spoken to her friends since they'd been in Colorado, dealing with the Wendigo, and Lena could almost feel her connections to the real world slipping away from her. As much as she enjoyed her brothers' company, she longed for something different and different people to talk to. She never thought she's say it, but she actually missed being at school, even though she had no intention of going back any time soon.

Lena knew she must have been lulled back to sleep by thoughts of familiarity, because the next thing she knew, Sam was leaning over the back of the seat, shaking her awake.

"Come on squirt." He said, nudging her gently into consciousness. Dean was already out of the car, so Lena rubbed her eyes and clambered out after him, walking next to Sam. It took her a few seconds to realise that they were at an airport, and when they walked in, they were greeted, a little over enthusiastically, by a slight, balding man, wearing an ill-fitting shirt and a really ugly tie, and Lena assumed that he was Jerry Panowski. He led them through a door to the side of the large reception area, away from the noisy, bustling bodies, and into a quieter area that seemed almost like a warehouse.

"Thanks for making the trip so fast." Jerry finally said, breaking the silence that had fallen over them "I ought to be doing you guys a favour, not the other way around." He turned to Sam and Lena "Dean and your dad really helped me out."  
"Yeah he told us." Sam replied cheerfully "It was a poltergeist?"

"_Poltergeist_?" A random guy interrupted on his way past them, only hearing half the conversation "Man, I loved that movie."

"Hey, nobody's talking to you. Keep walking." Jerry snapped at him irritably "Damn right it was a poltergeist, practically tore our house apart. Tell you something," he continued, looking back at Dean "If it wasn't for you and your dad, I probably wouldn't be alive."

Lena wandered how anyone kept up with the man and his almost constant stream of commentary, because he then turned back to Sam, as well as walking forwards and leading them through the building "Your dad said you were off at college, is that right?"

"Yeah, I was- I'm taking some time off." Sam replied, feigning nonchalance.

"Well," Jerry continued "he was real proud of you. I could tell. He talked about you all the time."

"He did?" Sam questioned, clearly surprised. Lena had to admit, she wouldn't have guessed that their father could go from being royally pissed at Sam for leaving to ranting about how proud he was of him in only a matter of a few months. It just wasn't like the John Winchester that she knew.

"Yeah you bet he did. And you too Elena," he added, snapping Lena's attention to him "He was showing a picture of his baby girl to anyone who'd look at it."

Lena looked down sheepishly and she felt her cheeks blushing, but Jerry moved on to another topic before she really had time to dwell on it.  
"Oh, hey, you know I tried to get a hold of him, but I couldn't. How's he doing anyway?"  
"He's, um, wrapped up in a job right now." Dean lied quickly, but Jerry didn't seem to notice the hesitancy in his voice,

"We'll we're missing the old man, but we get Sam and Lena. Even trade, huh?" Jerry grinned, and all three of the Winchesters had to let out a laugh.

"No," Sam replied "Not by a long shot."

"I got something I want you guys to hear." He told them as they entered an office, motioning to the seats in front of the large wooden desk "Please, sit. I listened to this and, well, it sounded like it was up your alley."

Lena watched curiously as Jerry slipped a cd into the disk drive on his computer.

"Normally, I wouldn't have access to this." He told them simply "It's the cockpit voice recorder for United Britannia flight 2485. It was one of ours."  
Lena was honestly surprised that the man managed to stay quiet long enough for them to listen to the recording. It wasn't that she minded chatty people-Taylor could talk all day and not run out of things to say- but Winchesters weren't exactly known for their words.

"'Mayday! Mayday!" The recording screamed at them "Repeat! 2485-immediate instruction... may be experiencing some mechanical failure..." the whole recording was lined with crackling static, but almost everything else was drowned out by a great whooshing sound that fizzled out, taking all other sounds with it.

"Took off from here, crashed around two hundred miles south." Jerry explained solemnly "Now, they're saying mechanical failure. Cabin depressurised somehow. Nobody knows why. Over a hundred people were on board; only seven got out alive." Lena winced at the thought, but continued to listen anyway "Pilot was one; his name is Chuck Lambert. He's a good friend of mine. Chuck is, uh...well, he's pretty broken up about it, like it was his fault."

"You don't think it was?" Sam asked seriously, his brow corrugated in thought.

"No, I don't." Jerry replied curtly, clearly not appreciating Sam's scepticism. Lena knew that Sam wasn't doing it on purpose-he was simply inspecting every option-but she stepped in all the same before tempters could rise.

"Jerry, we're going to need passenger manifests," she requested lightly "Um, a list of survivors."

"Alright" Jerry agreed, begrudgingly dragging his dark glares away from Sam, who was pretending not to notice them.

"And, uh, any way we can take a look at the wreckage?" Dean added quickly.

"The other stuff is no problem," Jerry replied, looking uncertain "But the wreckage...Guys, the NTSB has it locked down in an evidence warehouse. No way I've got that kind of clearance."  
Dean frowned and faked sighed "No problem."

Lena had to fight the grin that was trying to force its way onto her face. She knew what that meant.

New IDs.

A little while later, Sam and Lena were waiting impatiently by the car. Dean was inside a Copy Jack, getting the ids, and Lena had just finished going over the cockpit recording again.

"God, what's taking him so long?" Sam sighed irritably, leaning on the cool metal frame of the impala.

"Dude, you know what Dean's like." Lena laughed, sliding up the hood and pulling up her knees. "He's a perfectionist; he probably started over ten times already."

Lena looked over at Sam, and her face creased slightly with concern.

"Sam you look terrible." She commented gently, putting one of her hands over his as he leant against the impala.

"Oh, thanks Le," Sam replied, sarcasm dripping from every syllable "That's just what I needed to hear."

"I'm serious Sammy, you need to get some sleep." Lena told him, but Sam escaped from having to answer when the door to the store opened, and Dean sauntered out.

"You've been in there forever." Sam complained to his brother, breathing a mental sigh of relief that he had diverted the conversation his sister had been angling towards.

Dean grinned and held up two ids "You can't rush perfection." He explained. Lena let her eyes flicker to the photographs on the cards, and her face fell when she saw that one of them wasn't hers.

"Dean, where's mine?" she asked, hoping that he'd just put hers in his pocket for some reason.

"Sorry Princess," Dean replied "This is a little too high up the food chain for a teenage intern."

Lena opened her mouth to argue, but ended up pouting sulkily, irritated that at some point during the case, she was going to end up left behind.

"Homeland security?" Sam exclaimed as he took one of the Ids "That's pretty illegal, even for us."

"Yeah well, it's something new, you know?" Dean shrugged as they made their way around the car "People haven't seen it a thousand times."

They all clambered into the car, and Dean noticed the stormy expression on his sister's face.

"Alright pretty girl, so, what do you got?" He asked, hoping that getting her involved again would stop her acting so sore.

"Well," she sighed "there's definitely EVP on the cockpit voice recorder."

"Yeah?"  
"Listen," The laptop was on Sam's knees, and Lena leaned over the seat to play the tape, which she had edited carefully to pull out a scratchy voice that hissed 'No survivors!'

"'No survivors'?" Dean questioned with a frown "What's that supposed to mean? There were seven survivors."

Lena shrugged. "Got me."

"So, what are we thinking? A haunted flight?" Dean suggested, looking between Sam and Lena.

"There's a long history of spirits and death omens on planes and ships" Sam commented "Like phantom travellers."

"Or remember flight 401?" Lena added.

"Right," Dean agreed "The one that crashed. The airline salvaged some of its parts, put it in other planes, then the spirit of the pilot and co-pilot haunted those flights."  
"Right." Lena confirmed, sitting back in her seat.

"Maybe we got a similar deal." Sam suggested, his eyebrows raised slightly, expectantly.

"Alright," Dean continued, trying to be enthusiastic "so, survivors; which one do you want to talk to first?"  
"The third on the list: Max Jaffey." Sam told him almost immediately.

"Why him?" Dean queried, his brow furrowed a little.

"Well, for one, he's from around here." Sam explained matter-of-factly, and Lena guessed that must have been what Sam looking into while she was inspecting the recording "And two, if anyone saw anything weird; he did."

"What makes you say that?" Lena asked sceptically.

"Well, I spoke to his mother, and she told me where to find him." Sam answered cryptically, with a smug, knowing grin.

Lena groaned dejectedly when they pulled up outside the Riverfront psychiatric hospital. She knew that what they were going to talk about wasn't exactly normal, but she couldn't help but wonder how helpful the guy would be if he was in a mental institution.

The lady at the reception desk looked at their ids sceptically, but let them through nevertheless, and she quickly pointed out the person they were looking for. Lena held off behind a little as she didn't have an id, and Sam and Dean introduced themselves.

"I don't understand," Max told them as he walked between them, supporting himself with a wooden cane "I already spoke to homeland security."

"Right." Dean replied confidently, weaving a lie on his tongue "Some new information has come up, so if you could just answer a couple questions..."

Max gave a small nod, and Sam jumped straight in.

"Just before the plane went down, did you notice anything..." he paused to search for an adequate word "unusual?"

"Like what?" Max asked with a frown.

"Strange lights, weird noises, maybe." Dean suggested casually "Voices."

Max shook his head, but Lena caught a faint hesitancy "No, nothing."

"Mr Joffey-" Dean started before Max interrupted.

"Jaffey." He corrected, and Lena saw Dean refrain from rolling his eyes.

"Jaffey. You checked yourself in here, right?" Dean questioned, and Max gave a short nod "Can I ask why?" Dean asked incredulously.

"I was a little stressed" Max snapped sarcastically "I survived a plane crash."

"Uh huh" Dean agreed, narrowing his eyes slightly because apparently, Lena wasn't the only one who had noticed how shifty and uncomfortable the man seemed "And that's what terrified you? That's what you were afraid of?"

Max cracked slightly under Dean's scrutinizing gaze "I..." he stammered nervously "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"See, I think maybe you did see something up there." Dean continued firmly "We need to know what."

"No." Max answered curtly "No, I was...delusional, seeing things."

Dean looked over at Sam and Lena "He was seeing things." He repeated, deadpan, and Sam glared irritably.

"It's ok." Sam said, stepping in "Then just tell us what you _thought _you saw, please."

"There was...this-man." Max started, though he tripped and stumbled anxiously over almost every word "And, uh, he had these eyes-these, uh...black eyes." Lena's curiosity piqued, and she could tell by the way her brothers shifted slightly in their seats, that they were suddenly more interested too "And I saw him- or I _thought _I saw him..."

Max halted and diverted his eyes uncomfortably, but Dean was intrigued, and growing impatient.

"What?" he prompted earnestly, leaning forward, slightly wide-eyed.

"He opened the emergency exit." Max breathed disbelievingly "But that's...that's impossible right?" he appealed desperately to the three of them "I mean I looked it up; there's something like two tons of pressure on that door."

"Yeah." Dean murmured, clearly stumped.

"This man," Lena started carefully, surprising Max as it was the first time she had spoken "uh, did he appear and disappear rapidly? It would look something like a mirage?"

Max looked for a second like he was thinking, but then he frowned at Lena and scoffed "What are you, nuts?"

Dean shot him a sarcastic 'kids, huh?' look and a fake laugh, but Max didn't really seem amused.

"He was a passenger." He added "He was sitting right in front of me."


	11. Chapter 11

_**A/N: Hey guys! How's everyone?**_

_**I know it's been a few weeks since I updated this story, and I'm so sorry! Things have just been majorly manic at college at the moment, and I haven't had nearly as much time as I'd like to get any writing done :(  
Saying that, I'm actually a chapter ahead of where I thought I was, hence the early update hehe**_

_**I honestly don't know where this story would be if it weren't for the amazing reviewers that I've had (particularly wondertogondor and sweetkiwi604!) and you guys should know that I really appreciate each and every one! As well as telling me what you guys like/dislike, they are a huge source of motivation too :D So please, all feedback is greatly welcomed, so R+R!**_

_**Anyway, I'm going to shut up now haha**_

_**Peace and love**_

_**xoloveJBox**_

* * *

_**Chapter Eleven-Phantom Traveller- part 2**_

Less than an hour later, after hasty goodbyes to Max, the impala slid in front of a pretty, typically suburban two-story, with a front yard filled with vibrant, leafy shrubs.

"So here we are," Sam announced tiredly as they pulled up "George Phelps, seat 20C."

"Man, I don't care how strong you are," Dean commented as the three of them piled out of the car "Even yoked up on PCP or something, no way you can open up an emergency door during a flight."

"Not if you're human." Lena replied "But maybe this guy George was something else."

"Some kind of creature, maybe, in human form." Sam added, with an agreeing nod.

Dean nodded up to the house with a sceptic glance "Does that look like a creature's lair to you guys?"

They made their way up the steps, and when a woman came to the door, she looked surprised but let them in after seeing their ids. Sam and Deans fake cards were usually enough to get Lena through doors with civilians, but they all knew that when it came to eventually using them to get in to look at the plane wreckage, she would have to wait in the car.

Once the simple pleasantries were out of the way, the three of them sat across from Mrs Phelps. Sam glanced around curiously, and he stopped and picked up a framed photograph from the small coffee table at the end of the couch he was perched on.

"This is your late husband?" he asked softly, and Mrs Phelps smiled warmly

"Yes," she replied "that was my George."

"And you said he was a...dentist?" Dean questioned, trying to find the significance in it.

"Mm-hm." The woman confirmed "He was headed to a convention in Denver." She looked down for a second, and when she looked up there was a sullen expression on her face "Do you know that he was petrified to fly? For him to go like that..."

Lena couldn't help that that must have been one last kick in the teeth for the guy. Unless he wasn't actually a human guy and the whole 'married' gig was simply an act.

"How long were you married?" Sam asked, as if reading Lena's thoughts. Some of the things that had hunted over the years were smart enough to take on human attributes for a while, but not for too long.

Mrs Phelps sighed nostalgically "Thirteen years."

"In all that time, did you ever notice anything..." Sam started, trying to find the right words "strange about him, anything out of the ordinary?"  
"Well...uh." Mrs Phelps answered, looking between the three visitors "he had acid reflux, if that's what you mean."

Lena glanced across at her brothers, and they were both sporting the covert, wholly unimpressed glance that she was shooting them.

Yeah, she thought sarcastically that's exactly what they meant.

Dean, Sam and Lena quickly convinced the woman that they had all the information that they needed, though she assured them that she was happy to answer any more questions they may have. They waited until the front door had closed behind them before Sam let out a sigh.

"I mean, it goes without saying." He said to his brother and sister "It just doesn't make any sense."

"A middle aged dentist with an ulcer is not exactly evil personified Sammy." Lena chuckled.

"You know what we need to do is get inside that NTSB warehouse, check out the wreckage." Dean suggested. He had a serious 'I'm ready to work' look on his face, but Lena could tell that he mostly wanted to use his new id, and she refrained from rolling her eyes.

"Ok," She answered "But if we're going to go that route, you'd better look the part."

"What the hell does that mean?" Dean questioned her, but Lena smirked and went over to the car.

Twenty minutes later, Lena watched as her brothers disappeared into a men's tailors, with Dean grumbling something about 'damn monkey suits'. The sun bore down on the metal of the car, so Lena got out and leaned against the frame, blinking in the sunlight. Thinking that Sam and Dean wouldn't be out for a while, she looked at her watch, grinned, and pulled out her cell phone and dialled a familiar number. She knew that Taylor had gym class now, but she also knew that he friend always managed to wheedle her way out of it somehow, and hadn't been to a gym class all year.

Sure enough, after only a few rings, Taylor picked up and Lena couldn't help but grin.

"I'm surprised I reached you." She laughed sarcastically "You're supposed to be in gym class."

"Yeah well," Taylor answered casually "If I randomly started turning up now, they'd think I'd been faking all year."  
"I hate to break it to you Dear, but no one is sick every week at the same time for months."

"Tell me you didn't just call to yell at me for not going to class?" Taylor snapped playfully.

"No, I guess not." Lena replied cheerfully "How are things going?"

"The same." Taylor answered casually "I'll tell you something, it's a good job I want you to come back, or I'd have totally tossed out those ugly-ass rugs you bought."

"They're not ugly." Lena argued "They serve a purpose."  
"What purpose?" Taylor exclaimed with a chuckle. They cover the devil's traps Lena thought, but didn't say. The traps above the shower and in the walk-in closets were drawn in white candle wax, so they were hard to see if you didn't know they were there, but she'd had to paint the floor ones on, to stop them being disturbed by feet, so Lena had bought the first two rugs she could find that were big enough to cover them. And yes, she admitted secretly, they were ugly.

"Yeah well, I like them." Lena replied defiantly, ignoring the question with fake nonchalance.

"That's because you're a freak." Taylor laughed.

"Gee thanks Tay," Lena retorted sarcastically "I love you too."

"I miss you so much Le." Taylor blurted, suddenly quieter and more sullen "I know Jake misses you."

"Taylor..." Lena warned, because she knew her friend well enough to know where she was going with the conversation.

"No Elena," Taylor interrupted firmly "He's like a little lost puppy now."  
"So cheer him up." Lena argued, and she heard Taylor snicker.

"I can't." Her friend replied simply "I'm not you. He's totally head over heels for you."  
Lena scoffed "He'll get over that soon enough."

"Don't be such a cynic!" Taylor exclaimed "And you can deny it all you like Lena Winchester, but you like him back."

Lena felt her cheeks blush. Jake was a nice guy; he was smart and kind and funny. She liked spending time with him, and once or twice they'd gone out, just the two of them. They'd even shared a kiss a few days before she'd left, though Taylor didn't know about that. It had been quick, and a little clumsy, but it had held lingering remnants of the potential to be more, though Lena knew that it never would be. She had a hunter's heart, and while every now and again the feelings were more than fleeting- like her parents, and Sam and Jess- the job always got in the way.

"Yeah, well," Lena sighed "Winchesters don't exactly have a lot of luck romantically."

"That's a cycle Elena," Taylor replied softly "All you have to do is break it."  
"Oh, is that all?" Lena retorted sarcastically, and she could hear Taylor shuffling around down the line.

"Listen Le, I really, really want to stay and talk to you, but my mom's already threatening to ground me for the entire summer if I miss one more biology class." Taylor explained apologetically.

"Don't worry about it Tay" Lena answered cheerfully, though she was inwardly disappointed.

"Maybe you could convince your brothers to bring you for a visit?" Taylor continued hopefully.

"I'll definitely ask." Lena assured her, though she didn't know how successful she'd be in her endeavours. "Tell everyone else I said hi."

"I will. Bye."  
"See ya."

Lena hung up her phone, shoved it back in her pocket and grinned. She loved talking to her friend, even if it was only for a few minutes at a time.

However, she didn't have much time to dwell on it before Sam and Dean emerged again, now dressed smartly in crisp black suits and white shirts.

"Man," Dean whined "I look like one of the Blues Brothers."  
"No, you don't." Sam assured him, adjusting his collar. Lena could see his large hands fumbling with the button, so she waved his hands away and took over, with Sam shooting her a grateful smile.

"You look more like a..." Lena started, looking over at him and fighting to keep a straight face "Seventh-grader at his first dance."

Sam snickered and Dean glanced down at himself.

"I hate this thing." He muttered darkly as Lena finished helping Sam and they began to move back to the car.

"Hey, you want to get into that warehouse or not?" Sam questioned, though it didn't stop Dean's moody glares as Lena sat and laughed in the backseat.

"Stay. Here." Dean told Lena firmly when they pulled up outside the warehouse that held the plane wreckages. Lena rolled her eyes irritably, but nodded all the same. She watched dejectedly as her brothers got out of the car and entered the warehouse, and she sat, thrumming her fingers on her knee for a few minutes. She saw that Dean had left the keys in the car, so she leaned over the front seat and switched on the radio, letting the sound bounce off the doors and vibrate the seats gently. Rummaging through the box of cassette tapes, she almost didn't notice the large, black SUV pull up a little way behind the impala. She swore under her breath as two men dressed almost identically to Sam and Dean got out and made their way in the same direction as her brothers, and she quickly whipped out her phone.

"What?" Dean snapped when he picked up a few seconds later, but Lena didn't have time to be annoyed at his sharp tone.

"Five-O. Get out." She told him quickly and listened to the click of the line as Dean hung up. Lena clambered over the seat and sat behind the wheel, rapidly turning the key in the ignition and feeling the car rumbled to life underneath her. Almost as soon as the car was started, alarms started to blare, and Lena knew that they had been made. Guessing that her brothers wouldn't be able to get back through the front even if they tried, Lena put the car into drive and pulled up a little further around the back, near the gated exit. As she stopped, she saw Dean yank off his jacket and throw it over the barbed wire at the top of the fence, and a second later, the two of them leaped up and over it. Dean retrieved his jacket, and they both stood looking back through the gate. Lena saw Dean mutter something to Sam, but from where she sat, she couldn't hear him.

"Why are you stopping?" She expostulated loudly through the open window, grabbing their attention "Get in!"

Snapped back into reality by their sister yelling at them, Sam and Dean sprinted over and dove into the car, and they had barely closed their doors before Lena was tearing out of the parking lot.

"Well, that was...fun." Dean laughed a few minutes later, when they were a safe distance away and Lena was finally easing her foot from the gas pedal slightly.

"Fun? Fun!" Lena yelled angrily "Dude, you have a really warped sense of entertainment."  
"But look at that," Dean continued with a mischievous grin "You helped out after all Princess. You're driving the getaway car."

Lena shook her head and looked at Sam, who was sitting in the backseat, through the rear-view mirror.

"Sam, please tell me you actually got something?" She pleaded, putting her eyes back on the road.

"Uh, yeah..." Sam replied, reaching into his pocket and digging out the small bag he had stashed there and holding it up for Lena to see "This."  
"What is it?" She asked, not recognising the yellow powder in the bag.

"Your guess is as good as mine." Sam shrugged, frowning at the contents of the bag as if it might announce what it was to them if they waited long enough.

"So, where are we going?" Lena questioned, realising that she was driving without a real destination other than 'away from the warehouse'.

"The airport." Dean told her definitively "We'll give this to Jerry, see if he can shed any light on this."

Another thirty minutes found Sam, Dean and Lena sitting in Jerry's office, while Jerry inspected the contents of their find under the microscope.

"How'd you get into the warehouse, anyway?" Jerry asked, his head still bent to the eye-piece of the equipment.

"You, err," Lena started gingerly "It's probably better if you don't know."

Jerry looked up at them nervously for second before shrugging, agreeing with her.

"Huh," He mumbled after another minute of looking through the microscope "This stuff is covered in sulphur."

"You're sure?" Sam questioned seriously, though he couldn't decide whether or not he was surprised.

"Take a look yourself." He offered, moving away from the desk as they heard loud clattering and a man yelling "You effin' piece of crap..." just outside the door.

"If you guys will excuse me," Jerry said stiffly, looking wholly unimpressed "I have an idiot to fire."

As he left, Dean strolled over and looked into the microscope, though Lena had to wonder if Dean actually knew what he was looking at. She almost let out a laugh as she heard Jerry shouting somewhere outside.

"Hey, Einstein. Yeah, you, what the heck you doing? Put the wrench down-"

"Hmm, you know" Dean muttered as he stood up again "there's not too many things that leave behind a sulphuric residue."

"Demonic possession?" Lena suggested, finally calmed down enough after the excitement at the warehouse to get back into work mode.

"It would explain how a mortal man would have the strength to open up an emergency hatch."

"If the guy was possessed, it's possible." Sam agreed without hesitating.

"This goes way beyond floating over a bed or barfing pea soup." Dean voiced, making Lena wrinkle her nose at the analogy.

"You're so poetic." She muttered sarcastically, though Dean ignored her and carried on.

"I mean its one thing to possess a person, but to use them to take down an entire airplane?"

"You two ever heard of something like this before?" Sam asked, looking from his brother to his sister and back again.

Dean and Lena looked at each other for a second and answered simultaneously "Never."

The three of them returned to the motel room that afternoon, and set straight to work. The pulled out all of the books they could from the trunk, as well as Sam's laptop, and articles Lena had grabbed from the local library. Images and articles lined the walls, and the beds had gained new blankets of paper that was strewn across them. Sam was at the table with the laptop, Lena was sat cross-legged on the floor with books stretched out in front of her, and Dean was perched on the edge of one bed, reading the articles that were on the other.

"So," Sam sighed, shattering the silence that had fallen over them "every religion in every world culture has the concept of demons and demonic possession, right? I mean, Christian, Native American, Hindu, you name it."

"Yeah," Dean agreed "But none of them describe anything like this."

"Well, that's not exactly true." Sam continued, leaning his head against the wall behind him tiredly. "You see, according to Japanese beliefs, certain demons are behind certain disasters, both natural and man-made. One causes earthquakes, another disease."

"And this one causes plane crashes?" Dean asked sceptically.

"Alright, so, what?" Lena questioned from her place on the floor as Dean strode past her restlessly "We have a demon that's evolved with the times and found a way to ratchet up the body count?"

"Yeah, you know who knows how many planes it's brought down before this one?" Sam finished, and they were still just as clueless as they were when they'd started.

Dean scoffed and turned away, raking a hand through his short-cropped hair.

"What?" Sam and Lena asked him at the same time.

"I don't know guys." Dean sighed "This isn't our normal gig. I mean, demons, they don't want anything; just death and destruction for its own sake. This is big." He reasoned before adding quietly "And I wish Dad was here."

Sam sighed "Yeah, me too."

However, before any more comments were made on the subject, Dean's phone began to shriek in his pocket. He pulled it out and frowned at it before bringing it to his ear.

"Hello?...Oh, hey Jerry...Wha-Jerry, I'm sorry. What happened?.. .Where'd this happen?"

While Dean spoke, Sam and Lena shot each other confused glances as Dean looked more and more troubled by what he was hearing, but the two of them stayed silent to listen.

"I'll try to ignore the irony in that...Nothing. Jerry, hang in there, alright? We'll catch up with you soon."

Dean snapped his phone closed and furrowed his brow, looking concerned.

"Another crash?" Lena guessed dejectedly.

"Yeah," Dean replied "Let's go."  
"Where?" Sam asked simply.

"Nazareth."

By the time Lena spotted a sign announcing 'NAZARETH 3', there were still plumes of black smoke escalating into the sky. When they reached the wreckage, they had to be more cautious after their near run-in with the real homeland security, but they didn't hand around for long after the retrieved more of the same substance from the new crash as they had from the first. Jerry was decidedly less chatty when they arrived at his office a short while later, and despite how much the man got on her nerves, Lena felt a huge pang of sympathy for him. She couldn't imagine losing one of her friends. Pushing the unnecessary thought from her head, Lena tuned back into the situation in front of her, where Jerry was once again looking down into a microscope.

"Sulphur?" Dean asked gingerly, though he already knew the answer, and Jerry nodded, confirming it.

"Well, that's great." Dean muttered quietly before turning to Sam and Lena, who were sat around the computer at Jerry's desk. "Alright, so that's two plane crashes involving Chuck Lambert. This demon sounds like it was after him."

"With all due respect to Chuck, if that's the case, that would be the good news." Lena commented sullenly after what she and Sammy had found.

"What's the bad news?" Dean asked, though he looked more like he didn't want to know.

"Chuck's plane went down exactly forty minutes into flight." Sam continued "And get this, so did flight 2485."

"Forty minutes?" Jerry frowned "What does that mean?"

"It's biblical numerology." Dean explained sombrely "You know Noah's ark, it rained for forty days. They number means death."

"I went back" Sam added "and there have been six plane crashes over the last decade that all went down exactly forty minutes in."

"Any survivors?" Dean questioned, a look of set determination on his face.

"No." Lena answered simply and then reconsidered, so continued "Or not until now, at least, not until flight 2485, for some reason. One the voice recorder, remember what the RVP said?"

"'No survivors'" Dean mumbled, the cogs turning in his brain until the answer sifted through to him "It's going after all the survivors. It's trying to finish the job."

When they got back to the motel room, Lena worked on taking down everything they had taped to the walls and packing all of their things while Dean and Sam both used the phone. Silently, they got into the car and started to drive as the sky darkened, pulling a blanket of stars across the world.

"Really?" Lena could hear Sam saying in the overly cheerful voice of his current persona "Well, thank you for taking our survey. And if you do plan to fly, please don't forget your friends at United Britannia Airlines. Thanks."

Sam hung up the phone and returned to being Sam as he turned to the list in his lap.

"Alright. That takes care of Blaine Sanderson and Dennis Holloway." He announced as he crossed out the two names "They're not flying anytime soon."

"So our only wildcard is the flight attendant Amanda Walker." Lena commented, looking over Sam's shoulder at the single name remaining.

"Right," Sam agreed "Her sister Karen said her flight leaves Indianapolis at eight pm. It's her first night back on the job."

"That sounds just like our luck." Dean sighed sarcastically.

"Dean, this is a five our drive, man" Sam reasoned "even with you behind the wheel."

Lean sat forward in her seat so that her head rested between her brothers' "Call Amanda's cell phone again." She suggested "See if we can't head her off at the pass."

"I already left her three voice messages." Sam argued dejectedly "She must have turned her cell phone off."

"God, we're never going to make it." Lena muttered, not seeing any other option they had.

"We'll make it." Dean assured them and the car lurched forwards as her pressed his foot down on the gas decisively.

Lena didn't have time to try and piece her insides back together as the three of them rushed into the airport and up to the departures board.

"Right there," Sam pointed out to Lena, who was squinting up at the screen after leaving her glasses in the car "They're boarding in thirty minutes."  
"We actually made it?" Lena asked incredulously, undeniably surprised.

"Of course we did, ye of little faith," Dean smirked before his face turned serious again "Ok, we still have some cards to play. We need to find a phone."

They hurried around for a minute until Dean spotted one of the courtesy phones and grabbed it up.

"Hi," he greeted the voice on the line while Sam and Lena waited anxiously next to him "Gate thirteen...I'm trying to contact an Amanda Walker. She's a flight attendant on flight, umm...flight 424."

The seconds seemed to drag by as Dean waited for someone to pick up on the other line "Come on." He muttered impatiently, before he straightened up and started talking again "Miss Walker, hi, this is Dr James Hetfield from St. Francis Memorial Hospital." He lied quickly as both Sam and Lena tried to press their ears against the phone in Dean's hand to listen "We have a Karen Walker here."

Dean shot his brother and sister irritated glances and turned away from them as he continued "Nothing serious, just a minor car accident, but she was injured, so-" Dean stopped abruptly, and when he didn't carry on for a few long seconds, Sam and Lena moved around to see the slightly taken aback expression on his face as his brain worked to finish his lie.

"Uh, well..." he stammered "there must be some mistake...Guilty as charged...He's really sorry." Dean tried, and Lena furrowed her brow in confusion. Where the hell was this going? "Yes, but...he really needs to see you tonight, so-...don't be like that. Come on, the guy's a mess. Really. It's pathetic...Oh, yeah...No, no, wait Amanda! Amanda!"

Dean slammed the phone down angrily "Damn it!" He yelled "So close."

The intercom chimed, and an overly cheerful voice announced "Thank you for flying United Britannia airlines."

"Alright," Sam breathed "it's time for plan B. We're getting on that plane."

"Whoa, whoa," Dean interrupted hurriedly "now just hold on a second."

"Dean, that plane is leaving with over a hundred passengers on board," Lena appealed desperately, momentarily not noticing the wide-eyed look on her oldest brother's face "and if we're right, that plane is gonna crash."

"I know." Dean muttered indignantly.

"Ok, so we're getting on that plane." Sam replied decisively "We need to find that demon and exorcise it. I'll get the ticket. You and Le get whatever you can out of the trunk, whatever that will make it through the security. Meet me back here in five minutes."

Dean simply looked at them with anxiously pleading, puppy-dog eyes.

"Are you ok?" Lena asked him; finally catching on to how uncomfortable he seemed with their plan.

"No," he mumbled quietly "not really."

"What?" Sam questioned concernedly "What's wrong?"

"Well, I kind of have this problem with, uh..." Dean started in a whisper, as if it would make a difference to the situation.

"Flying?" Sam guessed with his eyebrows raised into his hairline.

"It's never really been an issue until now." Dean stressed, and Lena had to admit, she was surprised. It was the first time she had seen Dean scared of something that didn't involve Sam or Lena. He'd been terrified when Sam ran away when he was twelve; he'd been frightened when Lena had almost gotten run over in the parking lot of the motel, after being repeatedly told not to play out there, when she was eight. But this-flying- had nothing to do with them, and it wasn't a concept Lena was used to considering.

Sam scoffed a little disbelievingly "You're joking right?"

"Do I look like I'm joking?" Dean exclaimed "Why do you think I drive everywhere, Sam?"

"Alright," Lena told him comfortingly before he got himself worked up "Uh, Sam and I'll go."

"What?" Dean snapped uncertainly.

"Me and Le can do this one by ourselves." Sam replied decisively, nodding to Lena.

"What are you nuts?" Dean demanded, shaking his head "You said it yourself, the plane's gonna crash."

"Dean, you can come, or you can stay, but I'm not seeing a third option here." Lena reasoned, painfully aware of the fact that they were running out of time.

"Come on! Really?" Dean whimpered slightly "Man..."

Within a minute, Lena and Dean were at the impala, where Lena yanked the trunk open and began rooting through it for things that might get through security, which was a dismal amount. Lena was focused on the task, but she still noticed Dean's hands trembling slightly as he attempted to help her. After quickly deciding that there wasn't much they could use, Lena closed the trunk and went to make her way back to Sam, but when she looked back, Dean remained hesitantly next to the car.

"Dean, come on." She demanded softly, taking his hand and pulling him begrudgingly with her. Lena held her breath as she passed through security, hoping not to be caught with the weapons she had concealed under her clothes, but they somehow managed to walk through with no problems, and they soon found themselves boarding the plane. Sam found their seats, and Lena got in first, followed by Sam, and Dean in the aisle seat. While they waited, Dean pulled out the safety card from the back of the seat in front of him, and began nervously scanning the information there for a few minutes.

"Just try to relax." Sam offered.

"Just try to shut up." Dean snapped back, not taking his eyes from the card. Shortly afterwards, the plane rumbled to life beneath them, and as it took off, Dean jumped and started at every sound, making Sam smirk at him.

Well, Lena thought to herself it's do or die now. Literally.


	12. Chapter 12

_**A/N: Hey guys! **__**Happy New Year! **_

_**I know it's been a while (again...I know, I'm sorry) since I last updated, but I've been mega busy with studying and Christmas. It won't be long until my exams are over, and things should be a little bit more settled down by then, and I'll have more time to write :)**_

_**I don't know if anyone saw it, but I posted the first chapter of that 'One-shot' I mentioned on the latest chapter of Hands and Feet :) It's about the first few hours/days after Jess's death, right between Pilot and Wendigo. It was going to be a one-shot, but when I started writing it, it ended up waaaay longer than I thought, and it's not even done yet. It shouldn't be too long though haha :) If anyone's interested, it's called 'He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother' and I'd really appreciate if you guys would give it a read and let me know what you think, since I did some different things with it than usual :D **_

_**Anywaaay: as always, please let me know what you think. I always try to take on board what is said, so the feedback is always welcomed and appreciated!**_

_**Love and Peace,**_

_**xoloveJBox**_

* * *

_**Chapter Twelve-Phantom Traveller-part 3**_

When the seatbelt light dinged off, Dean let out a long breath and leaned back, humming to himself.

"You're humming Metallica?" Sam asked a little mockingly.

"Calms me down." Dean replied simply, going back to his humming.

"Leave him alone Sammy." Lena chastised, leafing through a magazine that was tucked in the pocket in front of her seat.

"Look man," Sam continued, ignoring his sister "I get you're nervous, alright? But you got to stay focused."

"Ok." Dean replied firmly, taking another deep breath.

"I mean, we got thirty-two minutes and counting to track this thing, or whoever it's possessing anyway, and perform a full on exorcism."

"Yeah," Dean sighed dejectedly "on a crowded plane. That's gonna be easy."

Lena was about to tell Sam that he wasn't helping matters, but she happened to catch a glimpse at Dean first, and she realised that Sam talking, focusing Dean's thoughts, was clearly making him more relaxed, so she stayed silent.

"Just take it one step at a time, alright?" Sam reassured his brother softly "Now, who is it possessing?"

"It's usually gonna be somebody with some sort of weakness, you know, a chink in the armour that the demon can worm through." Dean answered, seeming a lot calmer. "Somebody with an addiction, or some sort of emotional distress."

"Well, this is Amanda's first flight after the crash." Lena commented, shoving the magazine back to its original place "If I were her, I'd be pretty messed up."

Dean made a small agreeing sound and looked around to see a young, blonde flight attendant approaching them.

"Excuse me." Dean said, getting the woman's attention "Are you Amanda?"

"No," the woman answered with an overly-friendly smile "I'm not."

"Oh, my mistake." Dean laughed fakely, and she turned away from them. Dean looked around and spotted another attendant at the end of the plane.

"Alright," he continued "well, that's got to be Amanda back there, so I'll go talk to her, and uh, I'll get a read on her mental state."

"What if she's already possessed?" Sam questioned him.

"There's ways to test that." Dean grinned, reaching down into his bag and pulling out a bottle "I brought holy water."

"No." Sam replied, snatching it away and tucking it quickly inside his hoodie. "I think we can go more subtle. If she's possessed, she'll flinch at the name of God."

Dean nodded "Oh, nice." He answered and got up to leave.

"Hey," Sam said to get his attention.

"What?"  
"Say it in Latin."

"I know." Dean answered irritably and moved away again.

"Ok." Sam answered, but then looked back to Dean. "Hey!"

"What?!" Dean snapped when he moved back to the seat.

"Uh, in Latin, it's 'Christo'" Sam explained, and Lena rolled her eyes and Dean shot him deadly glares.

"Dude, I know! I'm not an idiot!"

Dean finally took more than a few steps away from them, but the plane shook with turbulence, and Lena spun around in her seat to make sure that Dean was still upright, but he simply thumped the seat next to him once and carried on walking.

"This is totally insane." Lena muttered, shaking her head.

"You got a better idea?" Sam shot across at her.

Lena sighed "No."

"Then stop complaining." He answered as he started to flick through their father's journal.

Dean came back a minute later and plonked himself back into his seat, with Sam and Lena looking expectantly at him.

"Alright, well," he announced "she's got to be the most well-adjusted person on the planet."

"You said 'Christo'?" Sam checked.

"Yeah." Dean confirmed.

"You said it twice to make sure?" Lena added sceptically.

"Yep." Dean chimed.

"And?" Sam questioned.

"There's no demon in her." Dean assured them "There's no demon getting in her."

Sam groaned "So, if it's on the plane, it can be anyone. Anywhere."  
"Well that's a comforting thought." Lena mumbled sarcastically.

The plane lurched and shook violently again, silencing almost everyone for a moment.

"Come on!" Dean complained "That can't be normal!"

"Hey, hey," Sam hushed "It's just a little turbulence."

"Sam, this plane is going to crash ok?" Dean hissed "So quit treating me like I'm friggin' four."

Lena leaned across Sam "You need to calm down." She told Dean firmly.

"Well, I'm sorry, I can't." Dean snapped at her.

"Yes, you can." She replied, and Dean shot her a shut-the-hell-up look.

"Dude," he exclaimed "Stow the touchy-feely, self-help yoga crap. It's not helping!"

"Listen to me," Lena demanded harshly to make him listen "if you're panicked, you're wide open to demonic possession, so you need to calm yourself down. Right now."

Realising that she was right, Dean forced himself to take a long, slow breath, but he felt it helping marginally.

"Good." Sam cooed, more than a little patronisingly "Now, I found an exorcism in here that I think is gonna work. The Rituale Romanun."

"What do we have to do?" Lena asked definitely, since it was one she wasn't familiar with.

"It's two parts" Sam revealed, skimming over the page again "The first part expels the demon from the victim's body. It makes it manifest, which actually makes it more powerful."  
"More powerful?" Dean squeaked, and Sam nodded "How?"

"Well, it doesn't need to possess someone anymore. It can wreak havoc on its own."

"Oh." Dean replied cheerfully before looking terrified again "And why is that a good thing?"

"Well, because the second part sends the bastard back to hell once and for all." Sam finished.

"First things first." Dean sighed "We got to find it." He grabbed his EMF reader and started to make his way down the aisle. Lena found that with the uncertainty of now knowing who it could be anymore, she was overcome by the need to do something, so she clambered over Sam and followed Dean. When she approached, she clapped him on the shoulder to get his attention, but it made him jump a mile.

"Ah!" he exclaimed "Don't do that."  
"Anything?" She asked hopefully.

"No, nothing." Dean replied bleakly "How much time we got?"  
Lena looked down at her watch and groaned "Fifteen minutes. Maybe we missed somebody."

Dean shrugged "Maybe the thing's just not on the plane."

Lena raised her eyebrows and glanced at him sceptically "You believe that?"

"Well," Dean answered "I will if you will."

The EMF meter whirred in his hands, and the two of them looked down at it curiously. They looked up as the co-pilot exited the bathroom and headed back towards the cockpit. Lena looked around. There was no one else near them that could have started it off, but she seriously hoped that the homemade device was simply malfunctioning.

"Christo." Dean muttered, and the man spun around the face them, eyes black and menacing, before going back into the cockpit.

"Oh crap." Lean mumbled.

The two of them subtly hurried back over to Sam, and Lena leaned over and whispered their dilemma into his ear. Sam cussed under his breath, but got up all the same, and the three of them made their way to the back of the plane, with a silently agreed plan passed between them.

"She's not gonna believe this." Sam grumbled as they walked down the aisle.

"Twelve minutes, dude." Dean replied as the only justification they needed, or had time for.

Amanda must have heard them enter the small back area, because she turned around almost as soon as they came in, and grinned pleasantly at them.

"Oh hi. Flight's not too bumpy for you, I hope."  
"Actually," Dean replied quietly as Sam pulled the curtain across to block them from view "that's kind of what we need to talk to you about."

"Um, ok." Amanda answered, looking a little uneasy "What can I do for you?"  
"Alright," Lena started quickly and simply "this is gonna sound nuts, but we don't have time for the whole 'the truth is out there' speech right now."

Sam saw the utterly confused look on the woman's face, so he cut off his sister in hopes of a more understood, straightforward explanation "Alright, look, we know you were on flight 2485"

The smile slipped from Amanda's face like quickly melting ice-cream.

"Who are you guys?" She asked, barely above a whisper.

"Now," Sam continued, ignoring her question, because they really, really didn't have time to explain. "We've spoken to some of the other survivors. We know something brought that plane down, and it wasn't a mechanical failure."

"We need your help because we need to stop it from happening again. Here. Now." Dean finished pleadingly.

"I'm sorry, I-" Amanda stammered nervously "I'm very busy. I have to go back-"  
She went to brush past Dean, but he put a desperate arm out to stop her.

"Whoa, whoa whoa whoa, wait a second." He said hurriedly "I'm not gonna hurt you ok?" he assured her, seeing the terrified look on her face, though she didn't look too convinced "But listen to me, uh...The pilot in 2485, Chuck Lambert. He's dead."  
"Wait, what? Chuck is dead?" She questioned, clearly wondering if she should believe them.

"He died in a plane crash." Dean told her, as compassionately as he could find time for "Now, that's two plane crashes in two months. That doesn't strike you as strange?"  
Amanda didn't answer. She seemed to be thinking, but Lena knew they needed to hurry it along a little.

"Look, there was something wrong with 2485. Maybe you sensed it, maybe you didn't." Lena appealed to the woman "But there's something wrong with this flight too."

"Amanda, you have to believe us." Dean said softly.

"On..." Amanda stuttered uncertainly "On 2485, there was this man. He...had these eyes."

"Yes!" Sam exclaimed "That's exactly what we're talking about."

"I don't understand" Amanda told them, looking half relieved that she wasn't crazy, and half convinced that she was "what are you asking me to do?"  
"Ok, the co-pilot, we need you to bring him back here." Dean told her firmly.

"Why? What does he have to do with anything?"

"We don't have time to explain." Dean argued "We just need to talk to him, ok?"

"How am I supposed to go in the cockpit and get the co-pilot-" Amanda started, but Sam cut her off.

"Do whatever it takes." He told her definitively "Tell him there's something broken back here, whatever will get him out of that cockpit."

Amanda shook her head "Do you know that I could lose my job if you-"

"Ok, well you're gonna lose a lot more if you don't help us out." Lena told her hurriedly. Amanda hesitated for a second and finally, finally, nodded.

As soon as Amanda slipped past, Dean quickly pulled the curtain across, leaving a margin of a gap for them to peer out of. They watched tensely as Amanda knocked on the door at the opposite end of the plane. Lena sucked in a breath when the co-pilot came out and the woman whispered something inaudible to him, but whatever it was, it worked, because the man/demon followed her back towards them. After a lifetime of working together on hunts, no words were wasted between the three of them, totally attuned to each other, as Lena held out her hand for the bottle of holy water Sam was giving her, and Dean pulled out the journal and pressing it into Sam's palm. The three of them stood a little to the side, so that when the co-pilot came in, he didn't see them.

"Yeah, what's the problem?" He asked, caught totally off guard as Dean's fist slammed into his face. Falling to the floor, Dean didn't even hesitate before pinning him down and covering his mouth with duct tape.

"Wait." Amanda gasped, horrified by the scene in front of her "What are you doing? You said you were just going to talk to him."

"We are gonna talk to him." Dean grunted as he struggled to keep the fighting man down, before looking at Lena, who had been keeping out of the way "Now Le." Dean prompted, and Lena stepped forwards, splashing some of the contents of the bottle of holy water on the co-pilot's skin, which bubbled and sizzled with the contact. With the confirmation, with no room for doubt, Lena dove to the floor and helped Dean quell the squirms that he was having trouble controlling.

"Oh my god." Amanda breathed, terrified, staring wide eyed "What's wrong with him?"

"Look, we need you calm." Sam told her simply, ignoring her questions as she evidently began to freak out "We need you outside the curtain."  
"Well, I don't underst- I don't know-" Amanda babbled almost incomprehensively, trying to make sense of the scene.

"Don't let anyone in ok?" Sam demanded "Can you do that?"  
She murmured something that Sam didn't understand, and Lena and Dean were a little too preoccupied to try and decipher.

"Can you do that?" Sam asked again "Amanda?"

"Ok." She finally said as she turned towards the curtain, bustling out. "Ok."

"Hurry up Sam." Dean grumbled through clenched teeth "I don't know how much longer we can hold him."

Sam licked his lips and promptly started reading "Regna terrae, cantate Deo, psallite Domino-"

During a slight readjustment of grip, one of the demon's arms came loose, and with a swift swipe of his hand, sent Lena sprawling momentarily, her cheek stinging. Sam and Dean were both hit too, sending the holy water out of reach, and the journal slipped from Sam's grip for a second. Dean and Lena quickly recovered and attempted to hold the demon again, but the demon had the advantage of having time to prepare its self each time, and the tiny area meant that they stumbled and crashed into each other. Before either of them had time to stop him, the demon had ripped the tape from its mouth, and grabbed Sam by the collar of his shirt.

"I know what happened to your girlfriend!" It told him in a menacing, mocking growl, making Sam freeze "She must have died screaming! Even now, she's burning!"

Both Dean and Lena had synchronised themselves again, and they leapt forwards, avoiding each other but tackling the demon, attempting to subdue it, but Sam simply sat there, too stunned to move.

"Sam!" Dean called, jolting his brother back into action. Sam shook his head clear and started to read once more. He committed the last few words to memory and put the book down in order to aid his siblings, but the demon kicked out and sent the book spiralling under the curtain and down the aisle of the plane.

Before they had chance to do anything about it, plumes of black mist rose leeringly from the co-pilot's body, ascending through the air and disappearing into a vent.

"Where'd it go?" Sam asked frantically, looking around him as the co-pilot's body fell limp under their grasps.

"It's in the plane." Lena muttered with a dark realisation.

"Hurry up." Dean told them "We got to finish it."

However, any plans of action we squashed when the plane dipped and heaved violently. Sam and Lena fell to the floor, caught off guard by the movement, and Sam scrambled to make his fingers grasp at the book. Dean ended up splayed across the exit door, screaming helplessly, pinned into his place from both the force of the plane's rapid descent to the ground, and his own undiluted fear. Unable to move, Lena could do nothing but strain to hear if Sam was speaking over the shocked screams of the unsuspecting passengers.

The minutes, or seconds, or whatever they were, dragged by painfully, and an almost blindingly bright electrical charge ran through the entire plane, and it suddenly evened out.

Lena pushed herself up shakily, adrenaline crashing through her veins, and she pulled open the curtain to see Sam stand up and grin widely at her. Unable to suppress the laugh that erupted from her chest, she stumbled over to peel Dean from the wall.

The time it took to arrive back at the airport flew past in a haze of held breaths and secret praying to anyone who was listening for them all to return with no further problems. Various passengers were being interviewed and questioned, but as far as anyone knew, Sam, Dean and Lena were no more involved than anyone else, so they had barely been given a second glance.

The stood watching all the other people exiting the plane, all relieved to be alive, and Lena couldn't help but feel a warm satisfaction that they had done that. Them.

Amanda was a little way ahead of them. She was being talked to by an agent of some description, and when she looked around and noticed them, she subtly mouthed 'Thank you'. The three of them gave a nod of acknowledgement, and Lena looked up hopefully at her brothers.

"Can we get out of here now?" she asked, and Dean shot her a weak, weary grin.

"Definitely." He replied, slipping an arm around her shoulder as they all turned to the exit. Lena saw Dean shoot Sam a curious look.

"You ok?" He asked casually, though his brow was corrugated with concern. Instead of giving him an answer straight away, Sam stopped abruptly and turned to his brother and sister.

"Dean, it knew about Jessica." He answered simply with hints of indigence, and Dean and Lena didn't need any other explanation.

"Sam," Dean started softly "these things, they, they read minds. They lie, alright? That's all it was." No matter how much confidence Dean tried to force into his tone, none of them were under any such illusion that it was actually true. However, Sam seemed content enough to choose to listen to it, and he gave a small, slightly unsatisfied nod.

He sighed "Yeah."

"Come on." Dean commanded them both gently, leading the way to the door and away from the successful chaos, leaving behind the potential disaster they had diverted.

"Nobody knows what you guys did, but I do." Jerry told them with a tired smile that afternoon as he reached out a hand for Sam's. "A lot of people could have been killed." Sam took his hand, shook it shortly, before Jerry moved on to Dean and Lena. "Your dad's gonna be real proud." He told them sincerely.

"We'll see you around Jerry." Sam answered to divert the conversation, and Lena could tell that Sam didn't mean the phrase. Honestly, she probably wouldn't care if she never saw the man again, after the job they'd had. They quickly said their goodbyes, and as the three Winchesters moved towards the car, Jerry started walking away.

"You know, Jerry." Dean suddenly called out, making the man turn back to them.

"Yeah?" He replied, a quizzical look on his face.

"I meant to ask you, how did you get my cell phone number anyway? I've only had it for like six months."

Jerry shrugged nonchalantly "Your dad gave it to me."

"What?" Sam asked incredulously, almost chocking on the word with the shock it induced.

"When did you talk to him?" Lena questioned desperately, her mind eager to drink in any leads or information it could find.

"I mean, I didn't exactly talk to him, but I called his number." Jerry replied, as if they should have known "His voice message said to give Dean a call." He grinned "Thanks again, guys."

They got in the car and drove away, but by the time they had gotten just out of the airport grounds, they had stopped again, each of them consumed with an almost insatiable curiosity. A plane rumbled overhead as Lena followed her brothers out of the impala. Sam and Dean leaned against the trunk, but Lena couldn't find the patience to stand still long enough, and she ended up pacing up and down in front of them.

"This doesn't make any sense, man" Sam commented dejectedly "I've called Dad's number like fifty times."  
"Me too." Lena concurred "It's been out of service."

Dean silently pulled his cell phone out and dialled the familiar number. He waited a second, and as the voice message began, he turned the phone so that Sam could hear it too. Lena leaned forwards eagerly, her head between her brothers. She felt her breath hitch a little when her father's voice started, familiar and comforting, but startlingly distant.

"This is John Winchester." Their father's gruff tone informed them "I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son, Dean. 785-666-0179. He can help."

The short ending to the message was chilling, and for a long, dragging second, no one moved. What did he mean by 'I can't be reached'? Clearing her head marginally, Lena regained control of her body and took a shaky step backwards. Sam fumed, and stormed towards the car, getting in and slamming the door behind himself. Shaking his head slightly and letting out a long breath, Dean followed, and Lena was close behind. When all the doors were shut, Dean blasted his music to drown out their frazzled thoughts. Sitting somewhat tensely in the backseat, Lena felt the seat underneath her vibrate slightly from the volume of the stereo, but for once she didn't mind. She didn't even bother trying to work out what the hell their father's cryptic message meant.

Lena found that lately, she struggled to work out what anything meant.


	13. Chapter 13

_**A/N: Hey folkes :)**_

_**I know it's been a while since I posted anything, but I'm smack bang in the middle of exams, so I haven't really as much time to write as I'd like However, I did one exam today, so this is a celebratory chapter hehe. I've got another one tomorrow, so I'm hoping to get some writing done over the weekend, because I've got a whole week then until the last exam, so I can breath a little more after tomorrow lol :) I'm also hoping to finish the last chapter of 'He Ain't Heavy' over the weekend too, so that should be up and finished soon :D**_

_**As always, please please please R+R and let me know what you think! I love reading reviews, and each and every one of them is unbelievably appreciated! I promise when I get back to having more time, I'll try and reply to all the reviews, but it might take me a while haha**_

_**Alrighty, I'm gunna go bury my head in my sociology revision now...yay *insert sarcasm***_

_**Love lots!**_

_**xoloveJBox**_

* * *

_**Chapter Thirteen- Bloody Mary- part 1**_

_The room was cold. Colder than usual, but Sam barely noticed as he lay down on his bed and let out a long breath. It had been a long weekend with Dean and Lena, but now the adrenaline was crashing in his system as he relaxed into the bed with his eyes closed. The shower crashed in the next room, echoing against the wall and resounding in Sam's ears. He couldn't hear Jess singing while she showered, and usually, he would have noticed, but Sam was just too happy to be home again. _

_For a few comfortable seconds, everything was normal. When something dripped on him, Sam furrowed his brow, but didn't open his eyes. When he felt it again, he shook his head a little, but for a moment, his eyes remained closed. Confused, he begrudgingly peeled open his lids, but immediately wished that he hadn't, because he was greeted by the sight of Jess, pinned helplessly to the ceiling, her eyes pleading with him to make her understand what was happening. _

"_Why Sam?" The walls seemed to whisper mercilessly as Sam began to scream. Jess's usually gentle tone continued to interrogate him "Why Sam? Why Sam?"_

_Sam couldn't move any more than scrambling fruitless on the bed, getting caught up and twisted in the sheets as he tried to escape, tried to get away and tell himself that it wasn't real. It wasn't real. It wasn't real. Flames erupted from the ceiling above him, scorching the frosty atmosphere that had settled in the apartment. Jess's voice had changed a little; it was different, but still familiar, though Sam wasn't sure where to place it. His mind was soon distracted from the change however, when she still waited "Why Sa-..."_

"Sam! Wake up."

Sam shot up; eyes open wide, feeling his sister's warm, small hand on his chest. He looked around, slightly dazed as he drunk in his new surroundings. It wasn't a new sensation for Sam, to go to sleep in one place and wake up in another, but his head was still thick with the disturbing images of his sleep. At least he could locate the change in Jess's voice- it was Lena he had heard, dream and reality seeping together, making it hard for him to work out what belonged where.

"I take it I was having a nightmare." Sam commented dully as his head slowly began to clear, and he tried to ignore the concerned looks his brother and sister were scrutinising him with.

"Yeah." Lena replied, deadpan, as she leaned back in her seat "Another one."

Sam shot her a weak smile "Hey, at least I got some sleep."

"You know," Dean answered sternly; unimpressed by his little brother's feeble attempt at a snarky comment "Sooner or later we're going to have to talk about this."

"I vote sooner." Lena piped up from the backseat. It wasn't the first time Sam's sleep had been plagued, and she hated to see it. It tore at her mercilessly, just as she knew it did to Dean, so she could barely imagine the things Sam saw in his mind during what was supposed to be peaceful slumber.

Sam looked around, eager for something to change the conversational topic, but he didn't see anything sufficient, so he settled casually on "Are we here?"

"Yup." Dean replied, choosing to indulge Sam in his feigned ignorance for the time being "Welcome to Toledo, Ohio."  
Lena passed Sam the newspaper, already folded open at the page with the obituary that had sparked their interest as a case. Sam skimmed his eyes over the words, seeing information he had seen over and over before he'd fallen asleep.

"So what do you think really happened to this guy?" He asked. He had no theories himself, and he wondered if his brother or sister had any either.

"That's what we're gonna find out. Let's go." Dean answered as the three of them got out of the car and walked towards the large, red brick building in front of them.

No one paid them much attention when they walked in, so they simply followed the signs through the building. It seemed like the further in they went, the less money had been spent on lighting, so by the time Lena spotted the printed sigh overhead that announced 'Morgue', the only light came from inside the rooms in the corridor they passed. When they walked into the morgue, they saw that there were two desks, one of which was empty, and the other was occupied by a young-ish balding man who really didn't seem to be doing much work.

As they strode into the room confidently, Dean glanced at the name plate on the other desk, groaning when he read 'Dr D Feilklowicz' and he was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to say it.

"Hey."

Dean snapped his attention back to the morgue tech, who was now looking at them expectantly, and he grunted out his own greeting.

"Hey."  
The morgue tech raised his eyebrows a little when the three of them offered no explanation for their presence.

Mainly because they didn't _have _one.

"Can I help you?" he asked, less than impressed.

"Yeah," Lena started quickly to stop the man from calling security or something like that, but when she looked across at her brothers, they were obviously just as clueless as she was, so she had to do some majorly quick thinking "We're the uh..." _Quicker _"Med students."

"Sorry?" The man questioned, looking over how small she was and furrowing his brow a little.

Dean saw his sister floundering over the otherwise plausible lie, so he jumped in to help her "Oh, Doctor-" he stumbled over the name on his tongue, deciding to just take a stab at it "Figlavitch didn't tell you?"

The tech tilted his head slightly, clearly searching through mental files for a conversation he couldn't remember.

"We talked on the phone," Dean continued, adding specifics to their tale. "We're from Ohio State. He's supposed to show us the Shoemaker corpse."

Lena grinned sweetly "It's for our paper."

"Well, I'm sorry," the tech apologized, though Lena seriously doubted the man's sincerity "he's at lunch."

"Oh well, he said, uh-" Dean shrugged dismissively, feigning nonchalance. "oh well, you know, it doesn't matter. You don't mind just showing us the body, do you?"

"Sorry," the tech replied simply "I can't."

Lena could tell that Dean was laying on his charm pretty thick, and she knew that if the tech had been a woman, they'd have absolutely no problems, but the man in front of them was proving to be a little harder to crack.

"Doc will be back in an hour." The tech continued, patronising tones oozing from the smug look on his face "You can wait for him if you want."

"An hour?" Dean sucked air between his teeth dramatically "Ooh. We gotta be heading back to Columbus by then." Dean looked to his brother and sister, who both nodded their agreement. "Uh, look man, this paper's like half our grade, so you don't mind helping us out-"

Dean was cut off quickly by the tech interrupting.

"Uh look man..." he answered, imitating Dean mockingly "No."

Dean let out a bitter laugh and turned to Sam and Lena, muttering darkly "I'm gonna hit him in his face I swear."

Sam clapped him on the arm and stepped in front of Dean, opening his wallet and pulling out some notes. Lena and Dean peered over his shoulder, and saw Sam hand over at least one hundred dollars, and Dean scowled as the tech gathered it up and slipped it into his pocket.

"Follow me." He grinned, suddenly all happiness and smiles. They went to follow, but Dean grabbed Sam to stop him.

"Dude, I earned that money." He hissed indignantly.

"You won it in a poker game." Sam replied incredulously.

Dean raised his eyebrows "Yeah!"

Sam rolled his eyes and followed after the morgue, trailed by his brother and sister.

As they entered the autopsy room, and Lena saw all the small metallic drawers, she had to fight hard to ignore what was in them, so she focused on the task at hand instead.

"Now, the newspaper said his daughter found him." She commented as the tech led them over to an examination table "She said his eyes were bleeding."

"More than that." The tech answered, and Lena found the sickly, almost impressed look on his face a little disturbing "They practically liquefied."

He pulled back the sheet that covered the body, revealing two violently red, dark holes where the man's eyes should have been, and Lena unintentionally cringed at the sight.

"Any sign of a struggle?" Dean queried "Maybe somebody did it to him?"

"Nope." The tech answered, deadpan "Besides the daughter, he was all alone."

Sam pulled his eyes from the surreal sight on the table in front of him "What's the official cause of death?"

"Ah, Doc's not sure." The tech replied "He's thinking massive stroke, maybe an aneurysm. Something burst up there, that's for sure."

Sam furrowed his brow "What do you mean?"

"Intense cerebral bleeding." Lena had to wonder if it was normal for the tech to sound so damn excited "This guy had more blood in his skull than anyone I've ever seen."

"But the eyes;" Lena argued "what would cause something like that?"

The tech shrugged "Capillaries can burst. See a lot of bloodshot eyes with stroke victims."

"Yeah?" Dean asked with his eyebrows raised sceptically "You ever see exploding eyeballs?"

"That's a first for me, but hey, I'm not the doctor." The tech joked, though Lena failed to see anything funny about it. She shot her brothers a look that asked '_is this guy for real?!'_.

Dean returned her glance with one that said _'Unfortunately' _and turned back to the man "Hey, think we could look at that police report?"

The morgue tech looked hesitantly at them, so Lena quickly added "You know for, uh...our paper."

The man sucked air between his teeth dramatically "I'm not really supposed to show you that."

Sam rolled his eyes and pulled out his wallet again.

It really was amazing how many rules could be bent for a few extra notes.

Lena let out a relieved breath once they were a certain distance away from the morgue. They'd gotten everything they needed and left as soon as possible.

"Might not be one of ours." Sam commented hopefully as they made their way down a flight of stairs "Might just be some freak medical thing."

Lena scoffed "How many times in Dad's long and varied career has it actually been a freak medical thing, and not some sign of an awful supernatural death?"

Sam seemed to think for a moment before his face slacked a little "Uh, never."

"Exactly." Dean replied.

"Alright," Sam sighed "Let's go talk to the daughter."

Lena had never been to funeral before, never mind the part that came afterwards. She'd never even been to a hunter's funeral, and she couldn't say she was sorry about any of that. However, when they walked into the Shoemaker's house, she'd never felt so self-conscious in her entire life. She glanced around at all the people in smart black dresses or suits, and then down at her leather jacket and jeans. She wished that she had _at least _brushed through her hair before walking in, instead of leaving it in a messy bun with strands escaping here and there.

"Feel like we're underdressed." Dean muttered to his brother and sister, and Lena shot him a deadly glare for voicing her silent concerns.

"You think?" She hissed, making a vain attempt to straighten her jacket, at the very least. Dean rolled his eyes as he watched his sister fussing over her clothes, and he stalked a little way ahead, approaching an elderly man wearing what looked like a very uncomfortable suit. When the man started to walk, Dean beaconed Sam and Lena to follow. They shuffled silently through the house and out into the backyard. He pointed them over to a group of girls, and the three of them thanked him quietly before approaching.

It was blaringly obvious straight away which girls were the Shoemaker daughters. None of the four girls exactly looked happy, but there was just something about the two with dark hair that made them stand out from everyone else. Lena felt pangs of sympathy wash over her for the two girls- one of which looked only a year or two older than she was, and Lena guessed that the younger was maybe only ten or eleven. She tried to hide her sympathy- she was sure that she would not want people to so obviously pity her, but Lena sincerely hoped she never found out for herself.

None of the four girls looked up when they approached.

"You must be Donna, right?" Dean tried, and quickly focused his attention when the older of the two dark haired girls looked up at them, surprised.

"Yeah," She confirmed quietly.

"Hi, uh-" Sam mumbled awkwardly, looking down at his feet "We're really sorry."

Donna smiled weakly at them "Thank you."  
"I'm Sam, this is Dean and Lena." Sam continued "We worked with your dad."

Lena saw a flicker of confusion pass over Donna's face as she looked to her friend before turning back to the three of them.

"You did?" she asked, surprised.

"Yeah." Dean replied quickly "This whole thing, I mean, a stroke."

"I don't think she really wants to talk about this right now." One of the blonde friends snapped at them.

"It's ok. I'm ok." Donna assured her, though it didn't stop her friend from throwing them dark glances that Lena tried her hardest to ignore.

"Were there any symptoms?" Dean asked, faking casualness, "Dizziness? Migraines?"

Donna seemed to think for a second before shaking her head "No."

The little girl next to her spun around then, looking exasperatedly at her older sister "That's because it wasn't a stroke." She exclaimed, piquing the Winchester's interest significantly.

"Lily, don't say that." Donna chided seriously

"What?" Sam queried curiously, looking intently between the two sisters.

Donna waved him off dismissively "I'm sorry, she's just upset."  
"No," Lily snapped irritably "it happened because of me."

"Sweetie," Donna cooed "it didn't."

Dean nudged Lena subtly, and she got the hint. She stepped in front of the girl and crouched down the eye level with her.

"Lily," she started softly "Why would you say something like that?"

Lily looked relieved that someone was actually listening to her, and she quickly explained "Right before he died, I said it."

"You said what?" Lena prompted, a little intrigued.

"Bloody Mary," Lily answered with undeniable conviction "three times in the bathroom mirror."

Lena wasn't quite sure what to say, and a long second of silence passed before Lily finished her confession "She took his eyes, that's what she does."

"That's not why Dad died," Donna tried to assure her sister "This isn't your fault."

"I think your sister's right, Lily." Dean added "There's no way it could have been Bloody Mary. Your Dad didn't say it, did he?"

Lily shook her head, looking visibly more at ease "No, I don't think so."

Lena patted Lily's knee comfortingly "See, I don't think you have anything to worry about." Lena smiled warmly at the girl before standing up and looking to Donna "Speaking of bathrooms, do you think I could use yours?"

Donna nodded, looking about as cheerful as she could manage "Sure, it's up the stairs and down the hall."

"Thanks," Lena replied pleasantly, looking to her brothers as they gave her an almost imperceptible nod to continue. She made her way around the people inside, and was relieved when the upstairs was completely deserted. Despite this, she crept along the hallway until she came to the bathroom door. She was about to pull out her EMF reader when she heard footsteps behind her, and she darted around the corner and out of sight. Holding her breath with anticipation, Lena was fully on the defensive, which only made her jump more when she heard voices.

"Lena!" Dean hissed quietly, and she looked around to see her brothers searching for her. She let out a long breath, cursing in her head and running a hand through her hair.

"Jesus Christ, you guys scared me." She told them in little above a whisper. Dean snickered, earning himself a deadly glare from his sister, but Sam ignored the two of them.

"This it?" he asked, jerking a thumb towards the door closest to him.

"I think so." Lena told him. Sam pushed open the door gingerly, and they saw that there was still a little bit of dried blood on the tiles. Lena really hoped that someone would be nice enough to clean that up, so that Donna or Lily wouldn't be left with the task.

"The Bloody Mary legend..." Lena started, trying to push images of the bathroom floor swirling with blood out of her mind "Dad ever find any evidence that it was a real thing?"

"Not that I know of." Dean shrugged as he and Sam walked in. Sam crouched down and ran a finger of the blot of blood on the floor and shook his head.

"I mean, everywhere else all over the country, kids will play Bloody Mary, and as far as we know, nobody dies from it."

"I never played Bloody Mary." Lena commented casually.

"That's because you're not stupid." Dean told her before turning back to Sam "Maybe everywhere else it's just a story, but here it's actually happening."

"The place where the legend began?" Sam suggested. Dean shrugged and started rooting through the medicine cabinet about the sink. Sam stood up, stretching out long limbs, and looked between Lena and Dean.

"But according to the legend, the person who says B-" he started, but stopped abruptly and looked at the mirror on the cabinet door, which Dean had left swinging, and closed it so that it wasn't facing him. "The person who says _you know what _gets it. But here-"

"Shoemaker gets it instead, yeah." Dean finished.

Sam sighed "Right."

"Never heard of anything like that before." Lena murmured "Still, the guy did die right in front of the mirror, and the daughter's right; the way the legend goes, you know who scratches your eyes out."

"It's worth checking into." Sam agreed, and they turned towards the door. However, instead of an empty frame, they were greeted by the sight of a seriously ticked-off, unimpressed teenage girl-the same one who had snapped at them before.

"What are you doing up here?" She demanded with an interrogative glare.

"We-" Dean began, searching for a good enough excuse but, apparently, came up empty "We had to go to the bathroom."

"Who are you?" the blonde asked sharply, her arms folded tightly across her chest.

"Like we said downstairs, we worked with Donna's dad." Dean lied, trying to look casual.

"He was a day trader or something." The girl argued defensively "He worked by himself."

A flicker of panic crossed over Dean's features, but it disappeared almost as quickly as it had arrived, and he shot her his most charming smile "No, I know, I meant-"

However, the girl didn't seem affected by his efforts, and she barely let him speak before interrupting. "And all those weird questions downstairs, what was that? So you tell me what's going on, or I start screaming." She threatened seriously.

Lena felt a spark of irritance flash through her, and she stepped towards the girl, pointing a finger and all but baring her teeth "Ok, listen here, I-"

Sam saw his sister's angry advances and quickly pulled her behind him and stepped forwards. "Alright, alright," he said, stopping both girls before an argument could ensue "We think something happened to Donna's dad." Sam admitted, earning himself glares from his sister for his honesty.

"Yeah, a stroke." The girl answered matter-of-factly, and Lena desperately wanted to laugh and tell her she was wrong, but she refrained. Just about.

Sam shook his head "That's not the sign of a typical stroke." He explained "We think it might be something else."

"Like what?" The girl enquired, clearly at least a little bit interested.

"Honestly? We don't know yet." Sam replied "But we don't want it to happen to anyone else. That's the truth."

"So," Dean finished "if you're gonna scream, go right ahead."

"Who are you?" She asked wearily "Cops?"

Lena couldn't hide the amused smile on her face as she looked from the girl to her brothers and back again "Something like that."

"I'll tell you what." Sam suggested, reaching into his pocket "Here." He pulled out a small scrap of paper and a pen, scribbling down a cell phone number "If you think of anything, you or your friends notice anything strange, out of the ordinary...just give us a call."

Sam pushed the paper into her hand before she had chance to decline it and the three of them stalked away, leaving the girl looking bewildered.


	14. Chapter 14

_**A/N: Hey guys! How is everyone?**_

_**I know it's been a while again, but I've finally finished all my exams for a few months, and I've caught up a little bit on my writing now :) I'm hoping to get a good chunk of 'Skin' written over the next few days, and if I do, I'm hoping to post the last chapter of 'Bloody Mary' over the weekend at some point :) I like having a little backlog incase I don't get so much time to write for whatever reason :D I'm also hoping to have another chapter of Hands and Feet up tomorrow or Friday too :)  
**_

_**Please please please R+R and let me know what you think! Thanks a million to the people who have left me reviews so far, especially the ones who take the time to comment on every chapter! You guys know who you are, and you people are seriously my inspiration *mwah***_

_**Lots of love!**_

_**xoloveJBox**_

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_**Chapter fourteen-Bloody Mary-part 2**_

In each town, there were three places that the Winchesters inevitably frequented; the motel, the diner, and the library. The library in Toledo was particularly dreary and outdated. The whole place was prematurely dark, and a thick musty smell seeped from the walls. Lena breathed it in and smiled. It reminded her of her favourite corner of the old library at school, where she could often sit alone amongst the aged, dusty books. Most of the pages were printed in Latin, so not many people bothered with them, but Lena often liked to leaf through, fingers brushing across remnants of a life she thought she'd been thrust from, particularly when she was feeling nostalgic and missing her brothers.

Lena was pulled from her thoughts by Sam tugging on her sleeve to draw her forwards and into their conversation.

"Alright" Dean sighed "Say Bloody Mary really is haunting this town. There's gotta be some sort of proof- like a local woman who died nasty."  
Lena quickly snapped her head into work mode "Yeah, but a legend this widespread, it's hard." She argued "I mean, there's like fifty versions of who she actually is. One story says she's a witch, another says she's a mutilated bride. There's a lot more."

Dean furrowed his brow "So what are we supposed to be looking for?"

They started walking further in, spotting a row of computers across the far side of the room.

"Every version's got a few things in common" Sam explained "It's always a woman named Mary, and she always dies right in front of the mirror." He pointed conversationally over to the ancient machines for computers "so we've gotta search local newspapers-public records as far back as they go, see if we can find a Mary who fits the bill."  
"Well, that sounds annoying." Dean muttered, making Lena smile, amused.

"No, it won't be so bad, as long as we-" Sam started to assure him, but Sam's eyes flickered to the computers, and the printed 'out of order' signs spread across each one of them, making him chuckle bitterly "I take it back. This will be very annoying."

"Not as annoying as that girl at the house." Lena commented as they made their way up an aisle to find the newspaper archives. "We didn't even give her a real reason to scream."  
Dean laughed "Le, you'd have totally slapped her if Sam hadn't of stepped in."

"No," Lena argued "I'd have slapped her because she was screaming. Though I still think it was a bad idea to tell her to call us."

Sam shrugged "It's a shame you think that," he grinned mischievously "It was your number I gave her."

"Oh Sam, come on!" Lena groaned while her brothers snickered "Play fair!"

For the best part of an hour, they flicked through old newspapers and local history books, but didn't find anything of much use, so they decided to take the little resources that they had found and head back to the motel. When they got in, Lena opened the books while Dean booted up the laptop. Sam sat heavily on one of the beds and flopped back tiredly.

"Hey Sasquatch, you feel like giving us a hand?" Lena joked.

"Hmmm." Sam agreed sleepily, his eyes closed "Give me a minute."

It only took a minute for the sound of Sam's soft, even breathing to flutter across the room. Lena tried to concentrate on the books in front of her, but when Sam shifted a little and whimpered slightly on the bed, she chewed her bottom lip nervously.

"He's ok." Dean lied dismissively, noting the way Lena's eyes continuously flickered over to Sam.

Lena scoffed "He's far from ok, Dean."

"Yeah," Dean sighed "I know." He admitted, dropping the pretence.

"What are we going to do?" Lena asked softly, her eyes filled with dark worry.

"Sam'll talk when he's ready to." Dean shrugged casually, though his mind was whirring a mile a minute, trying to formulate some plan of action.

Lena rolled her eyes "Yeah, 'cause us Winchesters are known for our chick-flick moments." She said with a bitter laugh.

They were interrupted by Sam gasping awake, and Dean and Lena stayed silent until Sam calmed down and groaned.

"Why'd you let me fall asleep?"

"'Cause I'm an awesome big brother." Dean replied dryly "So, what'd you dream about?"

"Lollipops and candy canes." Sam retorted, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Yeah, sure." Lean commented as she got up and went to the small kitchenette to make coffee.

"Did you find anything?" She heard Sam ask.

"Oh, besides a whole new level of frustration?" Dean answered as Sam forced himself into a sitting position "No, I've looked at everything. A few local women- a Lauran and a Catherine- committed suicide in front of a mirror, and a giant mirror fell on a guy named Dave, but uh, no Mary."

"'Bloody Dave' just doesn't have the same ring to it." Lena commented as she wandered back over, handing Sam and Dean mugs of bad, but sufficient coffee, before cracking open a can of coke for herself.

Sam flopped back on the bed, ignoring his sister's comment, not exactly in the mood for them "Maybe we just haven't found it yet." He sighed hopefully.

"I've also been searching for strange deaths in the area, you know...eyeball bleeding, that sort of thing." Dean continued "There's nothing. Whatever's happening here, maybe it just aint Mary."

"Well what else could it be?" Lena questioned. However, before she got an answer, her phone started to buzz in her pocket, and she quickly pulled it out.

"Hello?"

It had taken Lena a few dragging minutes of struggling to sort through the hysteria, but she eventually picked out enough details to fit the pieces together. After hanging up the phone, Lena had bustled her brothers up, and they had hurried out to the local park to meet Charlie, Donna's friend from the house.

They found her sitting on a bench, sobbing silently. Lena approached gingerly and sat next to her. Lena didn't exactly have a lot of experience with girls being so upset- her friends were all fundamentally cheerful people, and they weren't in the habit of letting a lot faze them. Lena didn't really know what to say, but she couldn't just stand and do nothing. Sam and Dean, however, didn't seem to have any problems with that, and they loitered a little way from them.

"They found her on the bathroom floor." Charlie mumbled when her tears finally slowed "And her-" she stumbled clumsily over the words "her eyes. They were gone."  
"I'm sorry." Lena replied, not really sure what else she was supposed to respond with.

"And she said it." Charlie blurted, suddenly raising puffy, red eyes to the three of them "I heard her say it. But it couldn't be because of that. I'm insane, right?"

"No, you're not insane." Dean assured her gently.

"Oh God." Charlie exclaimed with a bitter laugh "That just makes me feel so much worse."

"Look, we think something's happening here." Sam explained "Something that can't be explained."

"And we're going to stop it." Dean promised softly "But we could use your help."

Charlie looked anxiously into her lap, twiddling her trembling thumbs, and Lena shuffled along the bench, moving closer so that the girls were almost touching.

"Can you take us?" Lena requested, uncharacteristically compassionate "To Jill's?"

Charlie looked up at Lena with watery eyes, and she slowly nodded.

When less than an hour later, Lena found herself waiting under a window, to be let into the bedroom of a girl who may or may not have been killed by an old folk-legend used to scare kids at sleepovers, she had to ask how her life had gotten so complicated. But then, she wondered, had it ever been any different?

Eventually, they heard the click of the window's latch opening, and Charlie slid open the pane. Lena clambered up first, closely followed by Sam. Dean threw up the duffel bag before climbing up himself.

"What did you tell Jill's mom?" Lena asked quietly as Sam set the bag on the bed and started going through it.

"Just that I needed some time alone with Jill's pictures and things." Charlie replied as she curiously watched Sam retrieve things from the bag and Dean pull the curtain closed. Lena suspected that the excuse was probably true, though she doubted that this was what Charlie'd had in mind. "I hate lying to her." She added guiltily.

"Trust us," Dean answered "this is for the greater good. Hit the lights."

Lena nodded at the order and flicked the switch, plunging the room into the almost darkness of late afternoon.

"What are you guys looking for?" Charlie questioned as the three Winchesters started looking around.

"We'll let you know as soon as we find it." Dean responded absent-mindedly. Sam had fished a digital camera out of their bag, and handed it to Lena.

"Hey, night vision." He told her when she switched it on reveal a blank screen. Lena adjusted the settings, changing the image to a distorted, overly florescent version of the room.

"Perfect." She grinned, aiming the camera at Dean.

"Do I look like Paris Hilton?" Dean asked, pouting and sporting various ridiculous poses. Lena giggled until Sam took the camera away, muttering something about their 'childish antics' and started to inspect the room through the lenses. He started with the mirror in Jill's closet, slowly moving around all the edges.

"So I don't get it" he commented "I mean...the first victim didn't summon Mary, and the second victim did. How's she choosing them?"

"Beats me?" Dean replied as Sam shut the closet door, moving on.

"We don't even know that it is Mary." Lena argued "We might be looking for patterns that aren't there."

"Even so, I want to know why Jill said it in the first place." Dean growled, turning to Charlie, who shrank indignantly under his glare.

"It's just a joke." She muttered defensively.

"Oh ha ha." Lena commented dryly.

"Yeah, well, somebody's gonna say it again" Dean mumbled "It's just a matter of time."

"Hey," Sam called out, getting their attention from his place in the bathroom "There's a black light in the trunk, right?"

Dean sent Lena scrambling back out the window to the car, where she dug around for the black light. When she returned, Sam was setting the mirror on the bed upside down, and Lena tossed him the little contraption. No one said a word as Sam peeled back the brown paper on the back of the mirror, shining the light over it. Lena unintentionally shivered when the eerie purple glow revealed a smeared handprint and a name.

"Gary Bryman?" Lena read quietly.

"You know who that is?" Sam asked Charlie.

She seemed to think for a minute, but then shook her head "No."

Dean sat with Charlie on a bench outside the library while Sam and Lena went in. Lena went to the computers while Sam looked through the newspaper archive. Lena tapped her fingers impatiently as the browser took its own sweet time loading up, and when the web page came up, Lena typed quickly.

Though when she saw the results of her search, she kind of wished she'd taken her time.

Lena scanned over the article before mentally wincing at it, and printed it off. When she was sure it had come through, Lena logged off and went to find Sam.

"Hey," he greeted when she approached "You find anything?"

"Unfortunately," Lena sighed, handing him the paper and waiting for him to read it. Sam seemed to have the same kind of reaction, and he put the papers back and followed Lena out the library. Dean and Charlie were partaking in a semi-awkward 'I don't know who you are, but at the moment you're the only one convincing me I'm not totally crazy' conversation.

Sam cleared his throat as he neared them, and Dean and Charlie spun around to look at them.

"So," Sam started "Gary Bryman was an eight year old boy. Two years ago, he was killed in a hit and run. The car was described as a black Toyota Camry, but nobody got the plates or saw the driver."

"Oh my God." Charlie whimpered, tears pooling slightly in her eyes.

"What?" Lena asked determinedly

"Jill drove that car." Charlie explained shakily. Dean ran a calloused hand over his face.

"We need to get back to your friend Donna's house." He breathed.

The drive to Donna's was stilted and awkward. Lena wasn't used to sharing the backseat, and Charlie looked wholly uncomfortable. When they pulled up, Dean, Sam and Lena went to get out, but Charlie stopped them.

"I should go and talk to her first." She told them. Lena opened her mouth to argue, but Dean interrupted her.

"Alright, but be quick."

Charlie nodded and clambered out. Lena scowled and slammed her door shut again.

"We're taking orders from her now?" she fumed, folding her arms across her chest and slumping back in her seat.

"No, we're taking suggestions from her." Dean corrected, looking bemused at her through the rear-view mirror. "What's the matter with you anyway?"

"Nothing." Lena snapped. Sam and Dean both turned to look at her, eyebrows raised, because they weren't convinced.

"Come on Princess," Dean started "Spit it out."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Lena tried indignantly.

"Elena, it's obvious that you don't like Charlie very much," Sam told her matter-of-factly, "We just don't know why."

Lena sighed. She should have known that she couldn't keep things from her brothers. Not for very long.

"She reminds me of Taylor, ok?" She blurted irritably.

Dean pinched his brow slightly in confusion "You don't like Charlie...because she reminds you of your best friend?"

"I didn't have to leave school." Lena explained defensively "It was my choice, but that doesn't mean I want reminders everywhere I look. I mean, this is the longest I've been away from my friends since I was twelve."

"Alright, alright," Dean replied, "but try not to take it out on Charlie, huh?"

Lena huffed out a riled breath and turned to the window.

"Lena..." Dean said warningly.

"Fine." Lena barked "but don't ask me to be happy about it."

Before they had to engage in anymore thorny conversation, Charlie emerged out the front door and waved them over. Lena grabbed the little black light from the seat, slipped on her glasses and followed her brothers up the path to the door. Charlie nodded her head towards the stairs.

"Go right up." She instructed them. As they passed, Lena spotted Donna peering curiously around the living room door at them, but she didn't say a word, and Lena pretended not to notice.

They didn't really bother looking around the rest of the room, though Lena took a quick glance around and didn't see anything that stuck her as out of the ordinary. Dean removed the mirror and placed it gently on the floor. The black light showed another handprint, but this time the name read 'Linda Shoemaker'.

"Ok, there's something majorly weird going on here." Lena commented quietly, and Sam and Dean both grunted in agreement. "Right, you guys go and talk to Donna, I'll put the mirror back."

"Why?" Dean questioned, brow furrowed slightly.

Lena rolled her eyes "They think you guys are cops." She explained "She'll probably talk more without me there."

Dean looked at her for a second, but then nodded. He and Sam left the room, and Lena could hear them trudging down the stairs. She bent down and lifted the large mirror, which was heavier than it looked, and set it back onto the fixings on the wall.

Lena looked at herself for a minute; her green eyes and dark hair, pulled back into a high pony-tail and her fringe brushing over the top of her glasses.

She wasn't sure why, but she kind of wanted to say it. Just to see exactly what happened. It was like picking a scab or prodding a bruise; Lena knew there was a chance it would make things worse, but she sort of wanted to do it anyway.

Lena opened her mouth to utter the name that was rapidly becoming a Pandora's Box of unanswered questions and uncertainty. She felt the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stand up on end. Her breath hitched a little with anticipation, and she involuntarily shivered.

Lena shook her head and turned away before any sound could escape, hurrying down the stairs and away from the unexplainable temptation that the mirror held, catching the conversation at the bottom mid-way.

"Why are you asking me this?" Donna asked indignantly.

"Look, we're sorry," Sam apologized, and though they were lying about who they were, he seemed genuinely regretful. "But it's important."  
"Yeah, Linda's my mom, ok?" Donna snapped sharply "She overdosed on sleeping pills, it was an accident, and that's it. I think you should leave."

"Now, Donna, just listen-" Dean appealed, seeing how agitated the girl seemed to be getting.

"Get out of my house!" Donna screamed at them, turning around and taking off up the stairs, leaving the four of them-Dean, Sam, Lena and Charlie- bewildered at the bottom.

"Well," Lena sighed when the house was still again "that went well."

"Oh my God." Charlie gasped, a flicker of resignation crossing over her features "Do you really think her dad could've killed her mom?"

"Maybe." Sam replied simply. He didn't want to confirm anything until they were sure, but he didn't want to risk dismissing it too early either.

"I think I should stick around." Charlie told them definitively, looking guiltily up the stairs in the direction of her friend.

"Alright." Dean nodded before quickly adding "Whatever you do, don't-"

"Believe me," Charlie interrupted "I won't say it."


	15. Chapter 15

_**A/N: Hi lovelies! **_

_**I know it's been a little while since I posted, but come on. It's takes a while to write these chapters! Especially with the amount of college work I have right now, so yeah, I'm sorry, but there's not really much I can do about it for a while I'm afraid :/ **_

_**I've been cowriting a story with the absolutely incredible sweetkiwi604, so go check that out! (Seriously guys, she's incredible, and she certainly doesn't need me to put out an amazing story)**_

_**I'm thinking of putting out an 'original episode' soon, where the episode isn't one from the show, but I'm slotting it in there anyway. What do you guys think about that? To be honest, the original ones will probably be Lena centric because, obviously, she doesn't haver her own storylines in the show. **_

_**Does anyone have tumblr? If you do, my url is in my profile, and I follow back!**_

_**Reviews are lovely *hint hint* hehe ;)**_

_**Let me know what you think!**_

_**Love you guys!**_

_**xoloveJBox**_

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_**Chapter Thirteen- Bloody Mary- part 3**_

Lena's stomach was grumbling loudly by the time she carried breakfast into their motel room from the diner down the street the next morning. Sam was sat on one of the beds, looking over a colossal amount of print outs, while Dean sat at the table with the laptop whirring in front of him.

"Grub's up Sam." She told him as she started to dish up the food. As she moved, she caught a glimpse of the computer screen and she stopped.  
"Wait wait wait," She blurted "You're doing a nationwide search?"

"Yep." Dean replied casually as Sam wandered over curiously "The NCIC, the FBI database- at this point, any Mary who died in front of a mirror is good enough for me."

"But if she's haunting this town, she should have died in the town." Lena argued. She'd had a hard enough time coming to terms with the idea that Bloody Mary could even be real. She didn't need to try and get her head around other complications too.

"I'm telling you Le, there's nothing local, I've checked. So unless you've got a better idea...?"

Lena thought for a second before shaking her head and gratefully starting to eat her breakfast.

"The way Mary's choosing her victims." Sam started pensively "it seems like there's a pattern."

"I know, I was thinking the same thing." Dean agreed, looking around the contents of what Lena had bought back before turning expectantly to his sister "Elena, where's the pie?"

Lena tutted and rolled her eyes "Dean, it's eight thirty in the morning; you can't get pie this early."

"With Mr Shoemaker and Jill's hit and run." Sam continued, trying to refocus the conversation.

"Both had secrets where people died." Lena added.

"Right," Sam agreed "I mean, there's a lot of folklore about mirrors."

"They reveal all your lies, all your secrets, that they're a true reflection of your soul. That's why it's bad luck to break them." Lena recited dutifully, drawing on knowledge she'd always assumed to be more superstition than truth.

"Right, right," Dean concurred, fitting snippets of information together in his mind like a jigsaw puzzle. "So maybe if you've got a secret, I mean like a really nasty one where someone died; then Mary sees it, and punishes you for it."

"Whether you're the one that summoned her or not." Lena finished simply.

"Take a look at this," Dean muttered, fishing through a pile of papers next to him and picking two out, passing them over to his brother and sister. They were photographs, and the first one was of a woman lying face down in a puddle of blood next to a mirror. The second picture was a close up of the mirror, smeared with a crimson handprint and the letters "TRE"

Lena begrudgingly slipped on her glasses and inspected the photographs.

"Looks like the same handprint." Lena murmured, squinting at the page.

"Her name was Mary Worthington." Dean explained, tapping the picture of the woman "An unsolved murder in Fort Wayne, Indiana."

"We going?" Sam asked, looking expectantly at his older brother.

Dean snapped the laptop closed and nodded "We're going, so come on, hurry up."

Lena groaned dejectedly and got up to follow her brothers out the door.

"I was on the job for thirty five years- detective for most of that." The former detective in front of them explained. "Now everyone packs it in with a few loose ends, but the Mary Worthington murder; that one still gets me."

"What exactly happened?" Dean asked intently.

"You guys say you were reporters?" the man queried. They hadn't actually said anything, but they nodded and didn't bother to correct him.

"We know Mary was nineteen, lived by herself." Sam recited from the information he had managed to drag up on the drive to Fort Wayne. "We know she won a few local beauty contests, dreamt of getting out of Indiana, being an actress. And we know the night of March 29th someone broke into her apartment and murdered her; cut out her eyes with a knife."

Lena grimaced at her brother's blunt description, but listening to him reminded her of how painfully human Mary had been, and how her senseless death may have led her to be taking the lives of other people through the mirror.

The detective sighed heavily "That's right."

"See Sir, when we asked you what happened, we wanted to know what you think happened."

There was a second of silence while the detective looked them over contemplatively. He held up a finger for them to wait, and disappeared out the door. The three Winchesters looked confusedly at each other, unsure about what they were supposed to be doing. They silently decided to stay where they were, and a second later, the detective's head appeared around the door frame.

"You coming or what?" he shot at them with raised eyebrows.

Dean, Sam and Lena hurried after him, and followed him to a small, cramped home office. He strode over to a tall metal file cabinet.

"Technically, I'm not supposed to have a copy of this," he told them as he pulled out a file, opened it, and held out the same photographs they had looked at in the motel "Now you see there? T-R-E?"

"Yeah," Dean nodded enthusiastically, hoping to be told something new, preferably useful.

"I think Mary was trying to spell out the name of her killer."

From the almost excited tone the ex-cop used, Lena suspected that this wasn't the first time he had voiced his theory, but she guessed that they were the first people to take notice in a while.

"You know who it was?" Sam asked curiously.

"Not for sure." The detective sighed "but there was a local man, a surgeon-Trevor Sampson." The man pulled out another picture. Lena knew, and fully embraced, the idea that appearances could be deceptive. Hell, as far as she was concerned, she and her brothers were living proof of that- how many people would believe that she, a sixteen year old girl, had got her first kill under her belt at the age of eleven? But the photo in front of her sent involuntary shivers down her spine. Looking at the man on the page, she didn't find it hard to believe that he was capable of murder. There wasn't any particular feature that made him seem menacing, but even in the frozen instant caught in the image, there was a cold, calculated air about him that was hard, unrelenting and chilling to the core.

"Now why would he do something like that?" Lena asked quietly, dragging her eyes away and absent-mindedly pushing the picture away from her.

"Her diary mentioned a man that she was seeing. She called him by his initial: 'T'" The old man explained "Well, the last diary entry, she was going to tell 'T's' wife about the affair."

"Yeah, but how do you know it was Sampson who killed her?" Dean queried, making a thorough check of their information.

"It's hard to say," the detective told them, shaking his head slightly "but the way her eyes were cut out...it was almost professional."

"But you could never prove it?" Dean guessed. They knew all too well how infuriating it was to be almost 100% sure of something, and not quite finding the last piece of evidence to seal the deal. Plenty of cases had gone bust because they hadn't got as much proof as they would have liked, and the whole thing has slipped through their fingers like fog.

"No," the detective grumbled "no prints, no witnesses. He was meticulous."

"Is he still alive?" Lena asked hopefully, feeling themselves edge closer to finding out what was going on.

The detective sighed and sat at the desk, folding his hands up to rest his chin on "Nope. If you ask me, Mary spent her last moments trying to expose this guy's secrets, but she never could."

"Where's she buried?" Sam asked, feigning nonchalance. Lena almost let out a chuckle over the fact that no matter how many times they asked, or how hard they tried, they could never quite find a way to bring that question into casual conversation without getting odd looks. However, what did surprise Lena was the apparent ease with which the man answered.

"She wasn't." He shrugged "she was cremated."

"What about the mirror?" Dean questioned, nodding at the picture "it's not in some evidence lockup somewhere, is it?"

"No," he replied with certainty. "It was returned to Mary's family a long time ago."

Lena glanced across at her brothers, noticing the same invisible grin on their faces as she guessed was on hers. This was about to get much easier.

"You have the names of her family, by any chance?"

They left a few minutes later with one or two names and numbers to try. Lena lay down on the backseat, feeling the familiar, comforting rumble of the impala beneath her.

"Well," Dean sighed triumphantly "that's it. We get this mirror, destroy it and boom. All done."

"And then I'm going to sleep for a few days." Sam chuckled.

"I don't have time to sleep," Lena mumbled, stifling a yawn and pushing herself back up to sitting. "I have too much school crap to do."

"If you think that it's crap, why do you bother doing it?" Dean asked incredulously, glancing at her through the rear-view mirror.

"What can I say?" Lena grinned back at him mischievously "I'm a glutton for punishment."

Lena pulled out her IPod and untangled the white cables, pushing the earphones into her ears. For about twenty minutes, Lena watched the world pass by with music blasting in her ears, but then the device beeped at her, flashed the low battery signal and turned itself off. Lena groaned and tossed it on the seat next to her, and started to listen to Sam talking into his phone.

"Oh, really? Ah, that's too bad Mr Worthington. I would have paid a lot for that mirror...ok, well maybe next time...alright, thanks."

Sam snapped his phone shut and let out a long, irritated breath.

"So?" Dean asked, looking expectantly at his little brother.

"That was Mary's brother." Sam explained "The mirror was in the family for years, until he sold it one week ago to a store called Estate Antiques. A store in Toledo."

"So wherever the mirror goes, that's where Mary goes?" Lena suggested, scrunching up her face a little over how unexpectedly difficult the case was turning out to be.

"Her spirit's definitely tied up to it somehow." Sam added definitively.

"Isn't there an old superstition that says mirrors can capture spirits?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, there is." Lena agreed, drawing on mental files. She always found the information easier to find when she and her brothers were spit-balling ideas off each other like they most often ended up doing. "Yeah, when someone would die in a house, people would cover up the mirrors so the ghost wouldn't get trapped."

"So Mary dies in front of a mirror, and it draws in her spirit." Dean deducted, shooting a quick glance at his brother and sister to see if they were on the same wavelength.

"Yeah, but how could she move through like a hundred different mirrors."

"I don't know," Dean replied "but if the mirror is the source, I say we find it and smash it."

"I don't know." Sam grumbled uncertainly "Maybe."

"Whatever we do, let's just do it fast, get this over with." Lena retorted as she felt her phone start to vibrate in her pocket, and she answered it quickly "Hello?" Lena was met with a wall of hysteria, and when Sam turned to look at her, he saw a look of concern flash across his little sister's face. "Charlie?"

They picked Charlie up from her school and took her back to their motel room. It had taken a long time to calm the other girl down, but eventually she managed it enough to get Charlie into the room and onto the bed. Charlie sat, with her knees drawn up to her chest, her head on her knees and one handing clinging to Lena, who had no other choice but to sit with her arms wrapped around her. Sam and Dean closed all the curtains, and Lena watched them as they covered the TV, and turned all the mirrors to face the wall. When she could see that they were done, Lena tried to pry her hand away from Charlie's.

"Hey, hey, it's ok." She whispered comfortingly "You can open up your eyes Charlie. It's ok, alright?"

Charlie slowly lifted her eyes and nervously looked around, checking that everything was covered as Sam came over.

"Now listen," he instructed firmly "You're gonna stay right here on this bed, and you're not gonna look at glass, or anything else that has a reflection, ok? As long as you do that, she cannot get you."

Lena was used to listening to her brothers unconditionally when they used the definitive tone that Sam was using, the notion drilled into her from a young age, but Charlie was not quite so disciplined with the idea, and not as convinced as Lena was that Sam and Dean would do anything possible to keep her safe.

"But I can't keep that up forever." She argued sadly "I'm gonna die, aren't I?"

"No." Lena told her strongly "No, not anytime soon."

Dean came over and perched himself on the bed next to Charlie, giving her a stern, almost expectant look.

"Alright Charlie, we need to know what happened."

"We were in the bathroom." Charlie explained, sniffling "Donna said it."

"That's not what we're talking about." Dean corrected "Something happened, didn't it. In your life...a secret...where someone got hurt?" The way Charlie's gaze shifted confirmed that they were on the right lines, and Dean pressed the matter "Can you tell us about it?"

Charlie let out a shaky breath and started unsteadily.

"I had this boyfriend." She sniffled, wiping away so far unshed tears with the back of her hand "I loved him. But he kind of scared me too, you know? And one night, at his house, we got in this fight. Then I broke up with him, and he got upset, and he said he needed me and he loved me, and he said 'Charlie, if you walk out that door right now, I'm gonna kill myself.' And you know what I said?" Charlie glanced around at them with wide, dewy, desperate eyes "I said 'Go ahead' and I left. How could I say that? How could I just leave him like that? I just...I didn't believe him, you know? I should have."

Charlie lowered her head to her knees again, and started sobbing uncontrollably, despite Lena's best intended, though slightly awkward attempt at comfort.

"Alright Elena," Dean started as he and Sam gathered their jackets "You stay here with Charlie, we're going to see if we can track down this mirror."

Lena shot up from her seat and strode over to her brothers.

"No no no," she argued fervently "You can't do that to me. I'm coming with you."

Dean opened his mouth to protest, but Lena cut him off quickly.

"You told me to make an effort with Charlie," she hissed "and I did. You are not going to leave me behind now."

Dean looked at the deep, determined expression on his sister's face and finally relented.

"Fine," he sighed "Hurry up."

"I'll just grab my jacket." Lena grinned triumphantly and hurried back over to the bed.

"You're letting her come?" Sam demanded incredulously "Why?"

"Don't sweat it Sammy." Dean replied coolly "I've always got a plan. Charlie," he called to the still-crying girl, making her jump slightly "Stay here, ok? We won't be long."

The three of them hurried out to the impala, and Dean screeched out of the parking lot. Despite what they had told Charlie, she had been right; she couldn't keep up being careful what she looked at forever.

"You know," Lena started thoughtfully after a few minutes "her boyfriend killing himself, that's not really Charlie's fault."

"I think you're taking this being nice thing way too seriously Le." Dean chuckled "Charlie's not even here."

"Shut up." She shot back irritably "You know what I mean."

"You know as well as I do spirits don't exactly see shades of grey, guy." Sam commented matter-of-factly "Charlie had a secret, someone died, and that's good enough for Mary."

"I guess." Lena grumbled. It didn't matter that she wasn't exactly best pals with Charlie, she still didn't think she should be being punished for the choice someone else made, regardless of Charlie's influence.

"You know, I've been thinking," Sam continued pensively.

"Don't hurt yourself Sammy." Lena snickered, though her older brother ignored her and carried on.

"It might not be enough to just smash that mirror."

"Why?" Dean questioned "What do you mean?"

Sam sighed "Well, Mary's hard to pin down, right? I mean, she moves around from mirror to mirror, so who's to say that she's not gonna just keep hiding in them forever? So maybe we should try to pin her down, you know, summon her to her mirror and then smash it."

"Well, how do you know that's going to work?" Lena queried after a minute of contemplation. It certainly sounded logical to her, but she'd seen enough crazy stuff that made no sense to last her more than her lifetime, and she was only sixteen.

"I don't," Sam admitted quietly "not for sure."

"Who's gonna summon her?" Dean inquired bewilderedly.

"I will," Sam replied simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world "She'll come after me."

Lena saw a flash of anger flicker over Dean's face.

"You know what, that's it." He muttered darkly, and the impala swerved violently as Dean pulled it over "This is about Jessica, isn't it?" He bellowed angrily at his little brother "You think that's your dirty little secret, that you killed her somehow? Sam, this has got to stop man. I mean, the nightmares and calling her name out in the middle of the night- it's gonna kill you. Now listen to me" Dean's expression and tone softened slightly "it wasn't your fault. If you wanna blame something, blame the thing that killed her. Or hell, why don't you take a swing at me? I mean, I'm the one that dragged you away from her in the first place."

"I don't blame you." Sam murmured gently, looking down at his lap.

"Well you shouldn't blame yourself Sammy," Lena interjected softly "because there's nothing you could've done."

Sam turned to face his sister with almost pleading eyes, like he was willing her to understand "I could've warned her."

Dean's temper spiked slightly again "About what?" he snapped harshly "You didn't know what was gonna happen! And besides, all of this isn't a secret. I mean we," he ranted, jerking a thumb at Lena "we know all about it. It's not gonna work with Mary anyway."

"No you don't." Sam muttered almost imperceptibly, looking out his window to avoid the dark gaze from his brother, and the utterly confused one from his sister.

"We don't what?" Dean barked, getting tired of the pointless conversation.

"You don't know all about it. I haven't told you guys everything."

"What are you talking about?" Lena asked curiously.

Sam glanced back with a small, feeble attempt at a smile "Well, it wouldn't really be a secret if I told you, would it?"

Dean let a look of surprise and confusion pass over his face before he straightened his expression. "No." He said firmly "I don't like it. It's not gonna happen. Forget it."

"Dean, that girl back there is going to die unless we do something about it." Sam protested earnestly "And you know what? Who knows how many more people are gonna die after that? Now we're doing this. You've got to let me do this."

The curt, sharp look on Dean's face told his brother and sister not to bother arguing as he started the car again, and they drove in silence for a few more minutes before Dean once again pulled up, this time outside of a Laundromat.

"Alright Princess," he boomed, faking casualness "This is your stop."

"What?" Lena exclaimed "What are you talking about?"

"We're running out of clean clothes, and someone's got to do it." Dean answered simply as he reached down by Sam's feet and retrieved a bag of laundry.

"But you said-" Lena blurted quickly, but Dean cut her off before she could finish.

"I said we wouldn't leave you at the motel," he corrected curtly "I never said you could come with us to find the mirror." Dean tossed her the bag "We'll pick you up when we're done." He told her coolly. Lena opened her mouth to protest again, but Dean shot her a look that quiet plainly said 'Don't bother arguing. You won't win.' She tried to stare him down for a few seconds, but her big brother refused to relent, and Lena finally gave in, muttering cusses under her breath and slamming the door behind her. Dean shot her a sickly sweet defeating grin, and Lena has to fight to keep herself from punching him in the face as he pulled away.

As he watched Lena get smaller in the rear-view mirror, Sam let out a low, almost impressed whistle.

"Dude, she is going to be so pissed at you." He chuckled lightly

"Ah, she'll get over it." Dean replied nonchalantly with a shrug.

The found the store a few minutes later and Dean parked a little way down the street. He and Sam made their way back, keeping an eye out for people who might pose a problem to them. They didn't see anyone around, but as Sam worked on the lock, Dean kept watch. With expert, nimble quickness, Sam opened the door, and they both stepped swiftly inside before they were spotted.

They had thought that it would be simple, once they got inside; find the mirror, smash the mirror, leave. Maybe grab a burger on the way back, and pretend to listen the rant that Lena was sure to give them for leaving her behind.

However, that illusion of simplicity was soon shattered when they looked around and saw countless mirrors.

"Well..." Dean sighed dejectedly "that's just great." He reached into his jacket and pulled out the picture there, trying his hardest to ignore the dead figure of Mary to look at the mirror "Alright," he growled "let's start looking."

The brothers split up, wielding flashlights and coming up with nothing.

"Maybe they've already sold it." Dean suggested dismally, and Sam was just about to agree when he finally spotted it.

"I don't think so." He called softly, drawing his brother over.

"That's it." Dean confirmed, then sighed, looking over to his little brother "You sure about this?"

Sam handed Dean his flashlight and nodded.

"Bloody Mary." Sam started, a little shakily "Bloody Mary." Dean wished more than anything that Sammy would stop and change his mind, and he hoped that Sam would see it in his eyes so that he wouldn't have to voice his concerns, but Sam being as stubborn and as determined as ever, simply picked up a crowbar instead "Bloody Mary."

Lena fumed. She couldn't believe she had been landed with laundry. She couldn't remember the last time she had been so angry at her brothers, and she half wished that they had just left her at the motel. At least then she would have had Charlie to talk to, instead of just listening to the whir of their laundry in the washers. She went to pull out her IPod, and then remembered that it was still on the back seat of the impala, drained of battery. She raked a hand through her hair, and slumped in her chair, watching the clothes go around and around and around...

Lena had almost fallen asleep when the two machines that held her and her brother's clothes both dinged, signalling the end of their wash cycles, and she got up to load them into the dryers. Maybe this wouldn't take so long after all.

Sam and Dean didn't move. They barely breathed, listening and watching out for the slightest movement that might signal Mary's arrival. However, the first indication they had that anything had changed was the tell-tale glare f car headlights, outside the store.

"I'll go check that out." Dean murmured "Stay here. Be careful." He warned as Sam shifted the crowbar in his grip "Smash anything that moves."

Dean edged his way slowly across the floor, sticking close to the walls so that he could see out before anyone outside could spot him.

"Crap." He muttered when he noticed the familiar details of a police car. He put down his crowbar, took a deep breath and stood up straighter, walking confidently towards the door.

"Hold it." One of the two officers barked, pointing his gun, when Dean stepped outside. Dean held his hand up in fake defence.

"Whoa guys, false alarm." He chuckled "I tripped the system."

"Who are you?" The other cop asked sharply.

"I'm the boss's kid." Dean replied casually, putting on the most charming smile he could conjure up. The police officers looked at each other with confused glances.

"You're Mister Yamashiro's kid?"

A flash of movement out of the corner of his eye caught Sam's attention, and without hesitation he swung his crowbar and shattered the mirror to the side of him. Mary appeared in the mirror on the other side of Sam, and he quickly smashed that one too. The only one in Sam's direct vicinity was Mary's mirror.

"Come on," he muttered darkly, mostly to fill the oppressive silence that was surrounding him now that Dean had gone "Come into this one."

Sam watched himself in the mirror, but it took him a few long seconds to realise that the movements didn't match up. His breathing hitched in his chest, becoming painful, and Sam felt what he suspected was blood trickle down his face. He unintentionally dropped the crowbar, letting it clatter to the ground. His knees grew weak, and the only thing Sam could do was lower himself to the ground, clutching at his chest as pain stabbed at his skin.

"It's your fault." His reflection growled at him menacingly "You killed her. You killed Jessica."

Lena had retrieved the clothes, folded them, and returned them to the duffel bag, and she hadn't heard anything from her brothers. She tapped her fingers restlessly on her knee as she waited for them to return, and she could see from the irritated glances she was getting from the plump, balding middle-aged man behind the counter that if she didn't leave soon he was going to kick her out. She rooted around in her bag, pretending that she wasn't finished, but the man cleared his throat and nodded towards the door when Lena looked up at him. She begrudgingly gathered up her bag, throwing it over her shoulder, and left, walking into the chilly darkness that quickly enveloped her. She pulled out her phone to check again, and saw nothing. Again. Lena decided that the best thing she could do, other than go back to the motel, was to catch up with her brothers. She didn't know where the store was, but she knew that they hadn't passed it coming from the motel, so it must be somewhere in the other direction, right? She pulled her jacket tighter around herself and started walking, a small smile playing on her face.

Wouldn't it just get on Dean's nerves if his little plan backfired, and she got there in time to help anyway, even after doing the laundry?

"Like I said, I was adopted." Dean tried explaining again, but he could tell by the sceptical expressions on the officer's faces that they weren't convinced. Dean could see the police officers closing in on him in typical defensive fashion. He rolled his eyes slightly, knowing what was coming. "You know, I just...I really don't have time for this right now." He swiftly swung out his fist, letting it collide with one cop's face. Within seconds he had sparked out the other cop and come back to the first man, knocking him out cold too. He barely needed to catch his breath before hurrying back inside; leaving the two officers sprawled out on the concrete.

When he rushed in, he could hear Sam talking. Except it didn't sound like Sam- it was Sam's voice, yeah- but there was something low and guttural about it that made it sound more animalistic than Dean knew Sam was capable of.

"You never told her the truth-who you really were. But it's more than that, isn't it? Those nightmares you've been having of Jessica dying, screaming, burning-" Sam growled tauntingly "You had them for days before she died, didn't you?! You were so desperate to ignore them, to believe that they were just dreams." Dean peered around the corner and saw Sam hunched over on the floor, but he also saw Sam in the mirror. He looked around desperately for the crowbar he had dropped.

"How could you ignore them like that? How could you leave her alone to die?!" The reflection yelled as Dean's fingers finally found purchase on the cold metal of the bar.

"You dreamt it would happen!"

Dean all but flew to the mirror and crashed the metal into the glass, letting the shards shatter and rain to the ground. There was a second of stillness, of silence, but it was broken as Dean heard his brother panting for air after being released from whatever force had gripped him. Dean quickly spun around and knelt down next to Sam.

"Sam," he exclaimed as he took Sam's slightly lolling head in his hands "Sammy!"

Sam slowly dragged his eyes up to meet Dean's.

"It's Sam." He said matter-of-factly, and Dean had to refrain from rolling his eyes.

"God," he murmured, running an inspecting thumb over the streaks of blood on Sam's cheek "Are you ok?"

"Uh, yeah." Sam mumbled, visibly slumping.

"Come on, come on." Dean cooed gently, pulling Sam to his feet and leading him towards the door.

Lena saw the store from across the street. Then she noticed the police car and the officers on the floor, and she felt a shiver jolt down her spine. She knew that neither of her brothers would have just left the two men on the street, where anyone could see them.

Not unless something had gone wrong.

She jogged across the street with the intention of going straight into the store, but as she passed, one of the officers stirred with a groan and grabbed her ankle. Lena instinctively kicked out with her other foot, sending the officer back into unconsciousness with an oomph.

"Sorry." Lena grimaced as she pulled her foot out of the man's now slack grip.

When she crashed through the door, Lena was met by the sight of both her brothers lying on the floor, both flailing under the stare of a small, ghostly figure, dressed in white shawls, with a veil of jet black, shaggy hair falling across a shadowy, pale face. A plan flickered over her brain in less time than it took to blink, and without hesitating, Lena darted forwards and grabbed a long mirror. She jumped into the space between Sam and Dean, and held the mirror up to block them, squeezing her own eyes tightly shut, reflecting Mary's image back to herself.

Mary straightened up, looking at herself curiously, and from behind their make-shift shield, Lena could hear a low hissing.

"You killed them! All those people! You killed them!"

Lena dared to pry open an eye-just one- and saw Mary begin to choke, and after a long, dragging minute, she melted into a pile of blood. Almost as soon as she hit the floor, Mary pretty much exploded into a glitter of glass, and before anything else could happen, Lena threw the mirror in her hands, letting it demolish and splinter.

"Hey guys?" Lena breathed, looking around the store.

"Yeah?" Sam wheezed back shakily.

"This has got to be like...what? Six hundred years bad luck?"

Charlie was pacing when they got back to the motel room, eyes low and frantic. She looked terrified when they opened the door, but a look of relief took over her features when she saw that it was them, and Charlie surprised them all by flinging her arms around Lena's neck. Lena was taken aback, completely caught off guard, and she remained stiff until Charlie finally let go, and Lena threw dark glances at her brothers when they smirked at her discomfort.

For the next hour, they worked on slowly uncovering and righting all the reflective objects in the room, being careful to make sure that Mary was really gone. Sam and Lena both stood poised next to each item, crowbars in hand, ready to strike if Charlie caught even a flicker in the mirror that wasn't supposed to be there. However, nothing happened, and they let out a collective sigh. It was still in the dark, early hours of the morning, so they decided that they would all try to get some sleep before taking Charlie back to her house the next morning. Lena sunk gratefully into one bed, while Charlie occupied the other, and Sam and Dean fought over who was going to sleep on the couch in the room, leaving the other with the floor. After all the excitement and events of the day, Lena was sleeping before they made their minds up.

Lena woke up earlier than she would have liked the next morning, with Dean nudging her into consciousness.

"Up and at 'em Angel." He cooed gently in her ear, coaxing her out of bed with a paper cup of tea from the diner down the street. Charlie had worn some of Lena's clothes to bed, and when Lena finally dragged herself from between the sheets, Charlie was in the bathroom changing back into her own clothes, ready to go home. Lena drank her tea while she waited for the chance to get dressed herself, and she guessed that her brothers had both been up for a while, since they were both packed and ready for them to leave.

A little over half an hour later, and Dean had packed up the car and Sam had checked them out, they were ready to go. Dean went to climb into the front seat, but Lena cleared her throat loudly to get his attention.

"I don't think so." She told him firmly "You guys were bleeding from your eyes. I'm not getting in the car with you driving for at least another twelve hours. Now, we could stay here, but..." she held out her hand hopefully, and after a minute of consideration, Dean begrudgingly dumped the keys into her palm and slid over to the passenger seat.

"I didn't think that was actually going to work!" she laughed as she got in behind the wheel, listening to Sam grumble about having to sit in the backseat.

"By the way, that hat makes you look like a boy." Dean huffed indignantly as they pulled out of the parking lot of the motel.

"Oh shut up. It's the same hat I've been wearing since I was ten, and since I'm pretty sure you would have told me before now if it made me look like a boy, I'm guessing this has more to do with the fact that you're sore because I'm driving your car." Lena chuckled heartily. "Besides," she added, throwing her eldest brother a mischievous grin "even if I did look like a boy, I'd still get more girlfriends than you."

Their light banter carried on until Lena pulled up outside the house that Charlie had guided her to.

"So this is really over?" Charlie asked softly when they stopped, a hint of scepticism in her voice.

Dean nodded reassuringly "Yeah, it's over."

"Thank you." She replied as Dean reached over the seat to shake the girl's hand. Charlie shot them all one last smile and got out of the car.

"Charlie?" Lena called after her, and Charlie spun around, looking at Lena curiously "You're boyfriend's death...you really should try to forgive yourself. No matter what you did, you probably couldn't have stopped it. Sometimes bad things just happen."

Charlie shot her a small, faint smile, the three Winchesters watched until she had entered the house and shut the door behind her.

Dean gave his sister a playful shove "That's good advice."

"Thanks," Lena grinned "but you're still not having the keys back yet."

They drove for a little while in companionable silence before a thought pinged into Dean's head, and he spun around to face his little brother.

"Hey Sam?"  
"Yeah?" Sam answered, his eyebrows raised expectantly, waiting for Dean to carry on.

"Now that this is all over, I want you to tell me what that secret is." Dean replied seriously. Lena peeked at Sam through the rear-view mirror, and she could see that he was about to deny all knowledge.

"Come on Sammy, something drew Mary in. Spill Sasquatch." She interjected, feigning casualness.

"Look..." Sam sighed "You guys are my family, and I'd die for you, but there are some things I need to keep to myself."

For a few seconds, there was nothing but stillness and silence inside the impala.

"Gee Sam," Lena finally retorted sarcastically. "Did you want to be more elusive, or was the best you could do?"

"I'm putting some music on." Dean announced, a little louder than was actually necessary.

"Oh no you're not." Lena shot back, "What's that stupid rule you have? Driver picks the music? I'm pretty sure the driver is me right now."  
"I'm not listening to your drivel." Dean argued, reaching down for his box of cassette tapes.

"Drivel?! Dean, I'm pretty sure that nothing in that box was made after you were born."

Listening half-heartedly to his brother and sister argue, Sam almost missed her. He had to do a small double-take, but there was no mistaking that it was her. Jess. She was dressed in a long, white, flowing dress that brushed against the top of her bare feet. Her hair was loose and blowing in the slight breeze that caught it, and her wide, bright eyes held his gaze and followed the trail of the car. Sam wanted to get Dean and Lena's attention, to show them what he was seeing, but he couldn't move, couldn't take his eyes off her. No one passing her seemed to pay her any attention, and Sam desperately wanted to call out to her, but he couldn't make his body move, he was that mesmerised by seeing her, randomly on a street corner next to a light pole in Ohio. However, as they rounded a corner, the pole cut her out of his line of sight, and a second later, when she should have been coming back into view, Jess was gone.

* * *

_**A/N 2: Yay Lena! I wanted to let Lena save the day with the whole mirror thing because I'm kind of conscious that so far she's kind of like a damsel in distress, and I don't want it to seem like she's not tough or brave because she is, she really is, more than most people realise, and definitely more than she realises herself. I think she kicks ass! haha I don't know, what do you guys think of Lena as a character, because any feedback you guys give me, I can try and incorporate into her character to make her better/different/whatever :) **_

_**Have a nice day!**_


	16. Chapter 16

_**A/N: Hi guys...**_

_**I know it's been so long and I honestly don't have an excuse other than college being super crazy :s But, I only have about 8-10 weeks left (scary thought...) and then I'm done for the summer, and I can write 24/7!**_

_**I don't usually post a chapter until I've got the next one written too, but I thought I'd make an exception this once because I really do feel bad that I haven't posted in forever!**_

_**This is one of my favourite episodes, so I'm really looking forward to writing the rest of it!**_

_**As always, thank you to the incredible sweetkiwi604 and wondertogondor, and everyone else who reads/reviews/favourites/subscribes etc! I love you all **_

_**Mwah!**_

_**xoloveJBox**_

* * *

_**Chapter sixteen-Skin-Part one**_

_Fred Miller had seen a lot of crap in the years he had been working on the S.W.A.T team. He thought that nothing could surprise him anymore, that he'd seen it all, but nothing ever lessened the way he felt on a job, and this one was no different._

_He crept through the house, and he allowed himself a brief sigh of relief when he saw the girl. She was all bloodied up, and completely terrified, but at least she was still alive. Other officers brush past him to scope out the rest of the building, but Fred crossed to the girl, lowered his gun and knelt in front of her._

"_It's ok," he assured her as she started to cry "It's ok."_

_Looking at her, Fred guessed that she was about the same age as his baby girl, and he gently started to untie the rags that bound her to the chair. The girl whimpered and waved her hand away desperately the moment it was free, tearing the gag out of her mouth._

"_In there!" She whispered frantically "In there!"_

_Fred caught on instantly and he snatched up his gun and followed the other officers. They moved all the way down the hall, and caught the _bastard _trying to escape through the balcony doors._

"_Freeze! Don't move!" Fred yelled firmly, barking out instructions "Drop the knife. Keep your hands where I can see 'em. Drop it." He shouted again, and the man finally complied, letting the blood-stained blade clatter to the floor, keeping his back to the officers._

"_Hold it right there." Fred ordered "Now, turn around, slowly. Do it!"_

_The man did as he was told, moving carefully, keeping his hands in the air as he spun to face them. Although Fred didn't know it, it was Dean Winchester that he was faced with._

ONE WEEK EARLIER

"Alright," Dean announced as they pulled into a gas station. "I figured we'd hit Tucumcari by lunch, the head south, hit Bisbee by midnight."

"Sounds good," Lena nodded, looking up from the battered paperback in her hand. Sam, however, continued to frown at his phone, giving no indication that he'd heard at all.

"Sam wears women's underwear." Dean muttered and Lena smirked.

"I've been listening," Sam replied distractedly "I'm just busy."

"Busy doin' what?" Dean scoffed as he got out the impala and walked to the other side. The late afternoon sun was beating down on the car, and the windows were rolled down in an attempt to salvage some sort of breeze.

"Reading emails" Sam replied as Lena got out too, to stretch her legs after hours of being cooped up in the backseat.

"Emails from who?" Dean questioned, beginning to fill the tank as Lena leaned against the metal frame of the impala.

"The Pope." Lena drawled sarcastically "Who do you think?"

"From my friends at Stanford." Sam answered, rolling his eyes at his sister and going back to his phone.

"You're kidding. You still keep in touch with your college buddies?"

Sam frowned at his brother "Why not?"

"Well, what exactly do you tell them?" Dean queried "You know, about where you've been, what you've been doing?"

"I tell 'em I'm on a road trip with my brother and sister." Sam answered matter-of-factly "I tell 'em I needed some time off after Jess."

"Oh, so you lie to 'em." Dean commented.

"Last time I checked, you _are_ his brother, and I _am_ his sister." Lena interjected.

"Alright, little miss smartass." Dean snapped, feigning irritation.

"No," Sam started defensively "I just don't tell 'em...everything."

"Yeah, that's called lying." Dean chuckled "I mean, hey, man, I get it, telling the truth is far worse."

"So what am I supposed to do, just cut everybody out of my life?" Sam asked. When Dean only shrugged, Sam raised his eyebrows "You're serious?"

"Look, it sucks, but in a job like this, you can't get close to people, period." Dean finished as Sam went back to his phone indignantly.

Lena narrowed her eyes slightly at her eldest brother "You're kind of anti-social, you know that?"

"Yeah, whatever." Dean retorted before shooting her a wink "What about you Princess? You talk to anybody from school?"

"Are you kidding me? Of course I do." Lena answered incredulously "If I didn't have any other female interaction, you guys would drive me crazy with your testosterone poisoning."

"What are you talking about? I'm a pleasure to be around." Dean replied with a wide, mischievous grin.

"Yeah, right." Lena scoffed, leaning over and giving him a playful shove.

"God," Sam breathed, staring wide-eyed at the little screen.

"What's up Samson?" Lena asked, concern suddenly etched in her features.

"In this email from this girl, Rebecca Warren, one of those friends of mine," Sam explained before being interrupted.

"Is she hot?"

Lena shoved Dean again, a little harder this time but he was otherwise ignored as Sam carried on.

"I went to school with her, and her brother Zack. She says Zack's been charged with murder. Rebecca says he didn't do it, but it sounds like the cops have a pretty good case."

"Dude," Lena started "what kind of people are you hanging out with?"

"No Le," Sam replied quickly "I know Zack. He's no killer."

"Well," Dean sighed, leaning down to the window "maybe you know Zack as well as he knows you."

"Shut up Dean," Lena muttered "I'm going to grab some sodas, you guys want?"

"Sure," Dean nodded and watched as Lena wandered off towards the gas station.

"They're in St Louis," Sam read before turning determinedly to his brother "We're going."

"Look, sorry about your buddy, ok?" Dean chuckled "But this does not sound like our kind of problem."  
"It _is_ our problem." Sam pressed firmly "They're my friends."

Dean's amused smile slipped when he realised that Sam was completely serious.

"St Louis is four hundred miles behind us, Sam." He expostulated, giving his brother a stern look. Sam returned it ten-fold.

A few minutes later, when Lena slid back into the impala, she could tell that the atmosphere had changed. As his irritation level escalated, Dean barely waited for Lena to close the door before peeling out of the gas station. It only took Lena a few seconds to realise that they were going back in the direction they'd come from.

"Err, Dean?" she started, leaning forward in her seat "I wasn't too good at geography, so correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we going the wrong way?"

"We're going to St Louis." Dean snapped over his shoulder "A _slight_ detour."

"Right." Lena replied simply. She knew it was best not to argue, especially with the smug, triumphant look on Sam's face, so she grabbed her book again, and settled in for a long ride.

Five and a half hours later found Lena stood outside the house of a girl she'd never met, wishing they could have checked into a motel and bagged a few hours sleep first. But Sam was adamant that they needed to head straight to his friend's. If it wasn't for the fact that Sam was more animated than she'd seen him in a long while. Since Jess.

He rapped his knuckles on the door, and they waited patiently for a beat, until a blonde-haired woman opened the door. It didn't look like she'd been expecting company, because the expression on her face was an entirely surprised one until she spotted her visitors, and a smile cracked onto her cheeks.

"Oh my god, Sam!" She exclaimed delightedly, continuing to beam.

"Well, if it isn't little Becky" Sam smirked back at her.

"You know what you can do with that 'little Becky' crap." Becky warned playfully before reaching up to pull Sam into a hug.

"I got your email." Sam told her, apparently wanting to get straight into business before even stepping through the door.

"I didn't think that you would come here." Becky admitted. Dean, apparently bored of being ignored, nudged Sam out the way and thrust out his hand with a wide grin.

"Dean. Older brother." He introduced before nodding at Lena "This is Elena."

"Hey," Lena greeted with a small wave.

"We're here to help." Sam offered "Whatever we can do."

Becky shot them a grateful smile and stepped aside "Come in."

The three of them followed her through the door and down a hallway, with walls lined with smiling photographs, moments caught and frozen through a camera lens.

"Nice place," Dean commented, letting out a low, impressed whistle.

"It's my parents'." Becky explained "I was just crashing here for the long weekend when everything happened. I decided to take the semester off. I'm gonna stay until Zack's free."

"Where are your folks?" Sam questioned curiously. Dean and Lena both figured it was better to let Sam handle the questions, since he obviously knew Becky better than they did, so they stayed quiet.

"They live in Paris for half the year, so they're on their way home now for the trial." They walked into a large, modern kitchen "Do you guys want a beer or something?"

"Hey-" Dean started, grinning happily at the suggestion until Sam cut him off.

"No thanks. So, tell us what happened."

Becky took a deep, slightly uncomfortable breath and started "Well, um, Zack came home, and he found Emily tied to a chair. And she was beaten up and bloody, and she wasn't breathing." Becky turned away slightly as he voice cracked, tears welling in her eyes "So, he called 911, and the police- they showed up, and they arrested him. But, the thing is, the only way Zack could've killed Emily was if he was in two places at the same time." All three Winchester's gave each other a confused glance as Becky continued "The police-they have a video. It's from the security tape from across the street, and it shows Zack coming home at ten-thirty. Now, Emily was killed just after that, but I swear, he was here with me, having a few beers until at least after midnight."

"You know," Sam said carefully, turning to Dean and Lena "Maybe we could see the crime scene. Zack's house."

"We could," Dean agree, and Lena nodded too, though Becky clearly wasn't on the same wavelength.

"Why?" She asked, furrowing her brow slightly "I mean, what could you do?"

"Well, me, not much." Sam answered quickly "But Dean's a cop."

"Detective, actually," Dean chuckled. Lena scowled subtly at him, wandering what part of her brother's seemingly tiny brain rationalised overplaying things. She honestly didn't understand why he couldn't just keep things simple. But then, she guessed he wouldn't be the Dean she knew and loved if he was any different.

"Really?" Rebecca queried, and Dean nodded "Where?"

"Bisbee, Arizona. But I'm off duty now."  
Becky looked uncertainly at them "You guys, it's so nice to offer, but I just- I don't know."

Sam's face softened, but it still held a firm determination "Beck, look, I know Zack didn't do this. Now we have to find a way to prove that he's innocent."

Lena saw the conflict warring in Becky's eyes, but in the end, the need to protect her brother won out. Lena knew the feeling, she'd had it enough during her life.

"Ok," Becky finally conceded "I'm gonna go get my keys."  
Dean waited for Becky to disappear down the hallway before turning to Sam. "Oh yeah man," he muttered sarcastically "You're a real straight shooter with your friends."

"Look," Sam sighed, trying to hide his irritation over his brother's snide comments "Zack and Becky need our help."  
"I just don't think this is our kind of problem." Dean answered again.

"Yeah, you said that already." Lena commented, and Dean glanced over at her.

"What do you think Le?"

Lena thought for a second before letting out a long breath "Two places at once? We've looked into less."

For the second time that day, Dean found himself defeated by the arguments of his younger siblings, so he ran a slightly frustrated hand over his face and sighed.

"Fine, whatever," he huffed as Becky emerged again, so he plastered a fake grin on his face "Let's go."

The drive was silent but for Becky giving Dean directions to Zack house. Lena wished that someone would turn on the radio or something, but she didn't want to lean over and do it herself. She let out a subtle sigh of relief when they finally pulled up. Becky hesitantly followed them up the pathway and stopped just before she got to the steps.

"You're sure this is ok?" She asked Dean, and Lena felt a pang of guilt in the pit of her stomach. The way Becky was looking at Dean, as if her brother's whole future, so ultimately her own, rested on Dean being a good cop. Lena knew she should have been used to lying to people by now, she'd been doing it for her whole life, but it was people like Becky that meant it never got any easier.

"Yeah," Dean replied with an easy grin "I am an officer of the law."

They didn't need to step very far inside the house to see the blood smeared on the walls and furniture, the metallic smell of it stinging the back of their noses. Police tape still guarded the front door, and Sam, Dean and Lena ducked under casually, unfazed by the connotations it held. Becky, however, was still uneasy and cautious. When she didn't follow them, Sam turned back.

"Beck," he said softly, his eyes filled with compassion "You wanna wait outside?"

Sam's voice seemed to snap her out of whatever trance she was in, and she quickly shook her head

"No, I wanna help."

Sam gave a small nod as he watched his friend duck under the tape and take a few tentative steps forwards. "Tell us what the police said." Sam requested gently as Dean and Lena started taking a look around. They could both tell that part of the reason Sam was even asking was to distract Becky, but any information she could tell them might be useful.

"Well," Becky started tearfully "there's no sign of a break-in. They say that Emily let her attacker in. The lawyers- they're already talking about a plea bargain." She glanced around, seeing the remnants of her brother's normal life, ripped from him with no reasonable explanation, and she once again started to cry. "Oh, God..."

Lena was glad that Becky was Sam's friend. Any other time, if they were faced with someone crying, her brothers would send Lena to try and sort it out, but Lena was no better at dealing with crying than they were. Her friends weren't criers, so she didn't exactly have a lot of experience in that department herself.

"Look, Beck," Sam continued "if Zack didn't do this, it means someone else did. Any idea who?"

Almost straight away, Becky started to shake her head. Lena guessed it was pretty hard for anyone to imagine that someone would want to kill your brother's girlfriend and frame your brother for it. Becky looked sure and firm in her denial, but then she abruptly stopped.

"Um, there was something about a week before. Someone broke in here and stole some clothes- Zack's clothes. The police- they don't think it's anything. I mean, we're not far from downtown. Sometimes people get robbed."

As they spoke, Lena peered out the front door, seeing a dog in the yard of the house next door, and the second the hound spotted her, he barked furiously. Lena felt Becky come up behind her.

"You know, that used to be the sweetest dog." Becky mumbled slightly off-handishly.

"What happened?" Lena asked, glancing back at the other girl.

Becky shrugged dismissively "He just changed."

"Do you remember when he changed?" Lena queried, trying to keep her tone conversational, though the cogs whirred ferociously in her mind.

"I guess around the time of the murder." Becky's tone suggested she merely saw it as a coincidence, but Lena shot a subtle look to Dean, and she moved away from the door, wandering over with Dean to where Sam was stood in the hallway, looking at a picture of himself, Zack and Rebecca together. Lena noticed how happy her brother looked, how _ordinary,_ which was exactly what Sam had ever wanted.

"So, the neighbor's dog went psycho right around the time Zack's girlfriend was killed." Dean said matter-of-factly.

"Animals can have a sharp sense of the paranormal." Sam mumbled in response, still glancing nostalgically at the photograph.

"Yeah, maybe Fido saw somethin'." Dean replied, feigning casualness.

"So, you think maybe this is our kind of problem now Dean?" Lena asked with a small smirk.

"No, probably not." Dean answered quickly before adding "But we should look at the security tape, you know, just to make sure."

Sam and Lena shot each other knowing looks, because it was clear that it _was _most likely their kind of problem, but they both knew it was just being difficult because he didn't want to be proven wrong.

"Yeah," Lena and Sam agreed simultaneously, with a slightly biting sarcastic undertone.

Dean turned away as he heard Rebecca moving towards them, trying to ignore the amused snickers he was getting from his little sister.

"So, the tape." He started firmly, back into business mode "The security footage—you think maybe your lawyers could get their hands on it, 'cause I just don't have that kind of jurisdiction."

"I've already got it." She admitted a little sheepishly, her cheeks starting to flourish pink "I didn't wanna say something in front of the cop." Dean let out a small chuckle, but Lena could tell he was secretly impressed "I stole it off the lawyer's desk. I just had to see it for myself."

"All right." Dean answered, the remnants of a smile still playing on his face as they all headed determinedly towards the door.

Once they had something solid to focus on, the drive back to Rebecca's wasn't quite so stilted and awkward. When they got in, Sam, Dean and Lena waited in the living room while Rebecca retrieved the tape from her room, and she slipped it shakily into the DVD player. The footage flickered to life, and Lena heard Rebecca hitch in a little breath when Zack appeared on the screen.

"Here he comes" she muttered, barely above a whisper, eyes glued to the screen.

"22:04" Dean commented, noticing the time stamp in the corner of the screen "that's just after ten. You said time of death was about 10:30."

Becky nodded solemnly "Our lawyers hired some kind of video expert." She explained quietly "He says the tape's authentic. It wasn't tampered with."

Lena continued to watch, but out the corner of her eye, she saw Sam shift slightly in his seat, and she knew that he'd spotted something that everyone else had missed.

"Hey Beck, can we take those beers now?" He asked, confirming Lena's suspicions.

"Oh sure." Becky answered with a forced smile, though she seemed grateful for the distraction.

"Hey," Sam called as Becky got near the door, making her turn again "Maybe some sandwiches too?"

"What do you think this is, hooters?" she retorted with a grin before disappearing.

"I wish." Dean mumbled under his breath before walking over to Sam and Lena "What is it?"

"Check this out," Sam replied, rewinding the tape. The three of them were silent as Sam searched for what he had seen and clicked play. One frame showed Zack looking straight up to the camera, his eyes flashing silver. It was only a second-it would have been easy to miss with a blink, but there was no mistaking it. Sam paused the tape, keeping the menacing image frozen on the screen.

"Well, maybe its just a camera flare." Dean shrugged dismissively.

Sam shook his head "That's not like any camera flare I've ever seen."

"You know, a lot of cultures believe that a photograph can catch a glimpse of the soul." Lena added, reaching for the information and research that had been drilled into her pretty much from birth.

"Right," Dean continued slowly, like he was vaguely entertaining the idea.

"Remember that dog that was freakin' out?" Sam asked insistently "Maybe he saw this thing. Maybe this is some kind of dark double of Zack's, something that looks like him, but isn't him."

"Like a Doppleganger." Lena suggested, feeling the thoughts and ideas clicking together in her head like a jigsaw puzzle.

"Yeah," Sam agreed quickly "It'd sure explain how he was in two places at once.

Lena looked back at the image captured on the screen. Other than the unnaturally bright shine coming from Zack's eyes, there was nothing to suggest anything other than an ordinary guy.

Lena couldn't help but think how terrifying the world suddenly became when you couldn't trust your own eyes.


	17. Chapter 17

_**A/N: Hello loves!**_

_**I'm so unbelievably sorry that it's been so long since I last updated! I lost my muse for this story, and then I had exams, but it's back now, and I've officially finished college (YAY!) so I'm going to try my hardest to make sure I update this story at least every other week, if not weekly.**_

_**I've been writing this story since the end of last August, and I'm only on the 6th episode, so I've decided that to move things along a little bit, I'm only going to do a few more episodes of season 1, including one, possibly two 'original' storylines for Lena :)**_

_**If you guys leave me a review or a PM letting me know which episodes you would like me to do, I'll try my hardest to get as many done as I can. There are a few episodes that I already know I want to do, but I can't remember the name of them all right now, so I'll add them to the author's note whe**__**n **__**I update the next chapter (which will be soon with any luck!)**_

_**I can't thank you guys enough for sticking with me for this long, and you all deserve medals. I'd fully understand if you'd lost interest in this story since it's taken me so long to update, and especially because it's not even very good haha**_

_**You all deserve virtual cookies or something for being so patient!**_

**_Lots of love!_**

**_xoloveJBox_**

* * *

_**Chapter seventeen-Skin-Part two**_

The sun was still making a slow decent into the sky when the three Winchesters pulled up outside Zack's house again the next morning. They clambered out of the impala, though it was only Sam who was actually fully awake. The early morning air made Lena's breath come out in misty puffs as she and Dean leaned lazily on the hood of the car, sleepily sipping the hot drinks that Sam had pushed into their hands in an attempt to make them more alert.

"Alright, so what are we doing here at 5:30 in the morning?" Dean asked, clearly not impressed with his early rise.

"Yeah," Lena continued, stifling a yawn, "You know, one of the advantages of leaving school, where I had my own bed and everything, was that I didn't have to get up anywhere near this early Samson."

Sam sighed and rolled his eyes "Will you two stop complaining?"

"Nope." Dean and Lena replied together and they looked at each other with surprised amusement.

"Nice!" they exclaimed simultaneously, then Dean held up his hand for a high five, which Lena happily reciprocated. As he watched the two of them snicker to each other, Sam couldn't help but think that it wouldn't be hard to believe if he was adopted.

"I realised something," he announced loudly to cut through his siblings chuckles, snapping back their attention "The videotape shows the killer going in, but not coming out."

"So, he came out the back door?" Dean suggested.

"Right," Sam agreed "So there should be a trail to follow. A trail the police would never follow."

"'Cause they think the killer never left." Lena added, seeing the direction Sammy was going with his thoughts "And they caught your friend Zack inside."

"I still don't know what we're doing here at 5:30 in the morning." Dean grumbled into his coffee cup.

Lena handed her drink to Dean and started to help Sam look around.

"Blood," Sam called, looking at a telephone pole "Somebody came this way."

"Yeah, but the trail ends," Lena replied "I don't see anything over here."

Just then, an ambulance whizzed past them, screaming, and the three Winchesters exchanged a knowing glance.

They pulled up a few feet behind the ambulance and got out, feigning casualness, joining the hoard of nosy onlookers. They watched as an Asian man was led to a police car, handcuffed and looking more than a little flustered. Giving each other a subtle nod, Sam went off in one direction while Dean and Lena went further into the crowd.

"What happened?" Lena asked a nearby woman curiously.

"He tried to kill his wife," the woman replied earnestly, and Lena once again marvelled at how fascinated people could get when bad things happened "Tied her up and beat her."

Lena consciously widened her eyes in semi-fake shock. Yeah, she'd seen worse, but it never failed to astound her how animalistic and monstrous humans could be.

"Really?" She replied. In Lena's mind, if a sixteen year old girl came over to you, alone, and started to ask questions about an attempted murder, you should at least try and divert her, spare her the details, but this woman apparently didn't share the same values, and she carried on.

"I used to see him going to work in the morning. He'd wave, say hello." She let out a contemplative sigh "He seemed like such a nice guy."

Silently, Lena and the woman watched as the man was place, wide-eyed and clearly terrified, into the back of the police car, and driven away to uncertainty.

The crowd was gone by the time Lena spotted Sam, looking around inside garbage cans at the side of the house.

"Hey," she called as she walked down to him "Find anything?"

"Nope." Sam replied dejectedly "You?"

"Nothing important," Lena answered with a sigh "Apparently, he was a nice guy, but it's amazing how nice people seem in hindsight of being accused of something like this."

"Hey," Dean called as he approached.

"Please tell me you got _something_ useful." Lena answered, when they both turned expectantly towards their big brother.

"Remember when I said this wasn't our kind of problem?" Dean started.

"Yeah," Sam and Lena replied simultaneously, with slightly ginger tones.

"Definitely our kind of problem." Dean told them simply with a small nod.

"What'd you find out?" Sam asked hopefully.

"Well, I just talked to the patrolman who was first on the scene, heard this guy, Alex's story." Dean explained, and both Lena and Sam were totally engrossed, desperate for the new information to lead them _anywhere._ "Apparently the dude was driving home from a business trip when his wife was attacked."

"So he was in two places at once." Lena commented, starting to fit pieces of info together in her head.

"Exactly," Dean agreed before continuing "Then he sees himself inside the house, the police think he's a nut job."

"Two dark doubles attacking loved ones in exactly the same way," Sam voiced.

"Could be the same thing doin' it, too." Dean added, and a contemplative air fell over the three of them for a few long minutes.

"Shapeshifter?" Lena finally suggested, earning a shrug from both her brothers "Something that make itself look like anyone."

"Every culture in the world has a shapeshifter lore." Dean said, the cogs in his mind clearly working "You know, legends of creatures who can transform themselves into animals or other men."

"Right," Sam conceded "Skinwalkers, werewolves."

"We've got two attacks within blocks of each other," Dean carried on as Lena started to wander slightly, looking more closely at the blood trail "I'm guessing we've got a shapeshifter prowlin' the neighbourhood."  
"Guys?" Lena called over "Can I ask a question?"

"What's up Le?" Sam replied curiously.

"In all this shapeshifter lore, can any of them fly?"  
There was a moment of silence while all three of them thought before Dean finally answered "Not that I know of."

"I picked up on a trail here," Sam argued "Someone ran out the back of this building and headed off this way."

"Just like at your friend's house." Dean commented off-handishly.

"Yeah," Lena added "And, just like at Zack's house, the trail suddenly ends. Whatever it is just disappeared."

"Well," Dean sighed "there's another way to go-" he pointed to the floor, and Sam and Lena followed his finger to a manhole "Down."

"Oh, come on." Lena groaned when she realised what her brother was implying.

Lena had to slip on her glasses before she could even attempt to follow her brothers into the sewer. She hated wearing them, more than anything, but she wasn't going to take the risk of combining the dark with her lousy eyesight. It didn't seem to make any difference, however, as before she could reach the bottom, her foot slipped on a rung of the ladder, and she felt Dean's hand on her back to steady her the rest of the way down. Lena felt better when she had both feet on the ground, but only marginally. She cringed when she looked around and saw fat, heavy drops falling from the ceiling, and that the walls were slick with god only knew what.

"I bet this runs right by Zack's house too." Sam muttered quietly "The shapeshifter could be using the sewer system to get around."  
"I think you're right," Dean replied, "Look at this."

He motioned a few steps in front of them, and Sam and Lena mirrored his actions when he knelt down in front of a sticky pile of what looked creepily like blood and skin.

"Gross." Lena grumbled, forcing back her urge to gag when Dean took out a pocketknife and used it to hold out a trail of the gruesome concoction.

"Is this from his victims?" Sam wondered aloud, looking disgusted.

"You know, I just had a sick thought" Dean commented "When the shapeshifter changes shape-maybe it shreds."

"That is sick," Sam agreed, and even in the dark sewer, Lena could see his face turning a precarious shade of green. She didn't even want to think about what she looked like.

"Alright, let's get out of here." Dean finally announced, and Lena hurried back over to the ladder before he could change his mind. She scrambled up the ladder and stood at the top, drinking in the fresh, clean air while she waited for Sam and Dean to follow. Then the three of them quickly made their way back over to the car to plan their next move.

"Well, one thing I learned from Dad," Sam started as they reached the impala and pulled open the trunk "Is that no matter what it is, there's one sure way to kill it."

"Silver bullet to the heart." Lena replied almost instantly, confident only in her knowledge of the supernatural.

"That's right." Sam grinned as his cell phone started to buzz in his pocket, and he answered it quickly when he saw that it was Becky. He opened his mouth to greet her, but he was immediately stopped by his friend's irritated voice snapping at him.  
"Where are you?" Becky demanded.

"We're by Zack's." Sam told her innocently "Just checkin' some things out."  
"Well, look, Sam, just stop, 'cause I really don't need your help anymore."

Lena saw Sam frown, his brow furrowing in evident confusion and he took a few steps away so that Dean and Lena couldn't hear what he was saying anymore.

"See Princess," Dean sighed, nodding towards Sam "that's why friends makes things complicated."

"Yeah," Lena replied coolly, "but they _stop_ some things from being complicated too. They stop you from doing stupid things sometimes, and other times they're the ones encouraging you to do them. And they're someone to talk to."

Dean was silent for a long second, and Lena carried on digging around in the trunk, aware of her brother's eyes on her.

"You can talk to me." He finally replied quietly.

"I know that De." Lena assured him quickly "but sometimes it's nice to talk to people who don't have a clue what the hell is out there. I mean, it's scary to think that they're so ignorant to it all, that they can't protect themselves because they don't know what they're protecting themselves from, but it's nice. You should try it sometime." She finished with a lop-sided smile, giving Dean a playful, soft jab to the ribs with her elbow "And besides, there are some things that I couldn't make you and Samson understand, no matter how hard I tried. You have too much testosterone for that."

"I could totally bust out my inner teenage girl." Dean told her, feigning indignation, and Lena laughed genuinely for the first time in what felt like forever.

"I know you could big guy, but I love you too much to make you do that."

Before either of them could respond, Sam stomped over, stormy faced, wiping away Dean and Lena's grins.

"I hate to say it," Dean started knowingly "but that's exactly what I'm talking about. You lie to your friends because if they knew the real you, they'd be freaked. It's just-it'd be easier if-"

"If I was like you." Sam barked back, and Lena looked at Dean incredulously. She couldn't comprehend how he could seem to be so understanding towards her and her friends, but be the complete opposite to Sam.

"Hey man," Dean shrugged nonchalantly "like it or not, we are not like other people. But I'll tell you two one thing. This whole gig-it ain't without perks."

Dean held out a gun expectantly to each of his siblings, and they simultaneously took them without words, tucking them into the back of their jeans, and the three of them started walking again.

The sewer was no more pleasant than it had been the first time, but at least this time, they had something specific to be looking for, so Lena was slightly more distracted from the gross trails and slimy walls than she been previously. Lena was walking between her brothers, both of which had flashlights, and for a while none of them spoke, and it made Lena jump when Dean finally broke the silence that had fallen over them.

"I think we're close to it's lair."

"Why do you say that?" Lena asked, squinting ahead of her in the darkness, cursing her poor eyesight for about the hundredth time since they'd descended into the sewer.

"Because there's another puke-inducing pile next to your face." Dean deadpanned, and Lena and Sam looked across and jerked away from the wall, while Dean chuckled to himself.

"Oh, God!" Sam exclaimed disgustedly, jumping back away from the wall.

"Looks like it lived here for a while." Dean chuckled as he saw the expressions on his brother and sister's faces, nodding towards a pile of clothes in the corner.

"Who knows how many murders he's gotten away with?" Sam pondered as the three of them looked around. Lena saw movement out the corner of her eye and she looked to Dean.

But he wasn't alone.

Behind him was the Asian man she had watched being led away only a few hours before, and she felt herself tense up with apprehension.

"Dean!" she yelled, grabbing the attention of both her brothers. Dean turned just in time to be knocked to the ground by a punch in the face. The man took off running and Sam shot at him. Lena worried that the mixture of her poor eyesight and the dark would throw off her aim so much that there was a chance that she would hit Sam, so her gun stayed tucked into her belt, and she went to Dean instead.

"Get the son of a bitch!" Dean exclaimed as he pushed himself to her feet, and the three of them followed after the shapeshifter.

They watched as it scurried up a ladder and out the manhole at the top, but by the time Dean, Sam and Lena emerged onto the street, the shapeshifter was nowhere in sight.

"Alright, let's split up." Sam said as they looked around urgently.

"Alright," Dean agreed quickly "I'll meet you on the other side. Elena, stay with Sam, you hear me?"

"Got it." Lena replied obediently and she hurried after her brother determinedly.

It was close to an hour before Sam and Lena met up with Dean again, though they hadn't found anything useful. Lena always hated shapeshifter cases- they were messy and complicated, and this one was no different. There were hundreds of people the shifter could have changed into, and there were very few low key ways of finding out who.

"Anything?" Dean asked hopefully as he approached his brother and sister.

"No." Sam sighed dejectedly "He's gone."

"Alright," Dean answered simply "Let's get back to the car."

The three of them crossed the street and made their way back to the impala in silence as they each mulled over possible plans.

"You think he found another way underground?" Sam asked, voicing his thoughts out loud.

"Yeah, probably." Dean shrugged "You got the keys?"

Sam seemed to stop and think before turning to his brother "Hey, didn't Dad once face a shapeshifter in San Antonio?"

Lena looked to her brother in confusion. That wasn't right, and Sam knew it. She stayed quiet though, curious as to what was going on, and waited for Dean to answer.

"Oh, that was Austin." Dean replied casually "It turned out not to be a shapeshifter, it was a thought form. A psychic projection, remember?"

He finished with a grin, and although Lena didn't know what Sam was trying to achieve, she saw that he didn't seem entirely satisfied.

"Oh, right." He said with a forced smile, taking a step towards Lena "Here ya go."

Dean caught the keys effortlessly when Sam tossed them, and Sam waited until Dean was hidden behind the trunk to pull out his gun and indicate for Lena to do the same. She had no idea what was going on, but she hadn't been away from Sam for long enough for anything to happen to compromise him, and she trusted his judgement without a second thought.

"Don't move." Sam growled, and Dean closed the trunk to see two guns pointed in his face "What have you done with him?"

"Dude, chill." Dean demanded, holding his hands up defensively "It's me, alright?"

"No, I don't think so." Sam barked venomously "Where's our brother?"

"You're about to shoot him." Dean answered impatiently "Guys, calm down."

Lena started to piece everything together then, and she knew that it wasn't her brother standing in front of her. It filled her with rage to think that Dean was somewhere and she couldn't get to him.

"You caught those keys with your left." Lena snarled "Your shoulder was hurt."

"Yeah, it's better." The thing masquerading as Dean sighed "What do you want me to do, cry?"

"You're _not _our brother." Sam repeated firmly, and Lena felt herself go cold when a wide, amused beam spread across the shifter's face.

"Why don't you pull the trigger then? Hm? 'Cause you're not sure." He drawled "Dude, you know me." The shifter went to move towards the driver's seat door, but Sam jerked his gun towards him again.

"Don't." Sam warned. The shifter froze again for a second before his hand darted into the trunk. In less time than it took to blink, the shifter had pulled out a crow bar and swung it, letting the cold metal collide with Lena's temple, sending her crumpling to the ground and doing the same straight after to Sam, leaving them both enveloped into nothingness.


End file.
